


Nineteen

by Snickfic



Series: Sid/Olli series [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2013-2014 NHL Season, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Forced Intimacy, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Pittsburgh Penguins, Romance, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-01-27 14:36:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 78,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12584012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: When Olli answers the call to help an omega in need, he doesn’t expect the omega to be Sid. He doesn’t expect to end up bonded just in time for the Olympics, either, but they can break it after they get back. It’ll be fine.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In addition to tags, also contains: Olli Maatta/Sami Vatanen/OFC, mentions of mpreg, mentions of knotting, heat-related dubcon, a ship with a seven-year age difference.
> 
> Written for this sinbin prompt: _Say someone's an omega on the go, out at the mall when their heat hits. They'd have to get someone to maybe put out an announcement on the intercom looking for an alpha to donate their time in a quiet room, and all the busy alphas wonder if they have time to help out an inconvenienced stranger in between shopping for birthday gifts and changing their oil._
> 
> Thank yous and acknowledgements in the end notes.

On a gray, drizzly day in late January, Olli drove downtown to the same department store he always went to. He’d chosen it at random the first time he’d gone shopping for real, after he realized how many shirts and socks and pairs of shoes a guy needed if he was going to play hockey in the NHL. He knew the whole layout now. He lingered at the belts for a while—he didn’t _need_ another one, but he could have one, if he wanted. That’s what all the zeroes meant on the contract he’d signed. But good sense won out, and he moved on to the dress shirts. He’d gotten spaghetti sauce all over one last week. 

The music piped into the men’s department abruptly cut off, and into the silence crackled the announcement, “An alpha’s assistance is requested in the quiet room on the third floor. Any alphas who are not currently occupied, your assistance would be gratefully accepted in the quiet room on the third floor.”

Olli stared unseeingly at the dress shirt he’d taken off the shelf. He knew about this, of course. He’d even heard a similar announcement before, when Beau, Bortz, and Suttsy had hauled him off to the mall to celebrate management’s decision to keep him in Pittsburgh. He needed mall food, they’d said. The announcement had come over the PA system then, too, and they’d explained it to him, the incredible American custom he’d never quite believed before. An omega was in trouble, deep in their heat, and rather than call in a service alpha – because those were private here, and expensive – a call was put out to any willing alpha to come lend a hand. Or a dick, rather.

Bortz and Suttsy were betas; Beau was an alpha, but he wasn’t interested in orgasms for charity, either. “It’s gross, dude. They hardly know you’re there, sometimes. Doesn’t that sound kind of gross?”

“But they must need it,” Olli had ventured. “Why would anyone do that, let a strange alpha fuck them, if they had another choice?”

Beau shrugged, looking unsettled, but Bortz added, “I mean, if you can’t get anyone to sleep with you any other way—”

Olli had stared at him until Bortz dropped his gaze, looking abashed, as he should. What did betas know about this, anyway?

It was clearly a terrible system. Even Beau seemed to think so, although he hadn’t quite admitted to it out loud. What was to stop alphas from just camping out in the food court, waiting for one of those requests for assistance to come over the PA? Who was to say the assisting alpha would be healthy, undiseased, even marginally clean? 

Olli imagined his dad writhing in some dark room without a safe, certified service alpha to take care of him—without anyone except whatever stranger who happened to be around. If Olli were back home, he’d call the national service and stay nearby until someone came, the way his mother taught him. No responsible alpha ever left an omega alone to suffer. But they didn’t do it that way here.

And now there was some omega on the third floor about to be knotted by who knew what kind of person while Olli pressed wrinkles into a pale blue dress shirt. Olli swallowed hard and put the shirt back on the shelf. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his coat, and he went to look for the escalator. There was a single harried beta woman behind the customer service counter. “Yes? What can I help you with?”

Olli wondered if there was protocol for this sort of thing—a phrase he should say that would be polite and not embarrass anyone. “I heard the announcement,” he said. The woman kept on blinking at him, so he added, “I’m an alpha.”

“Ah. Well, thank you for coming, but we need an adult.”

Olli was too uncertain about the whole thing to muster up much of a scowl. “I’m nineteen,” he said, pulling his wallet from his pocket. “I have ID.” She didn’t believe him, it was clear. He shifted his weight and threw his shoulders a little farther back, but if she wasn’t going to be convinced by his ID and his one hundred eighty-eight centimeters, then posturing didn’t seem likely to help.

Someone walked up behind him. “You need an alpha?” said the voice, low and rumbling. Olli turned and looked. The man’s smile gleamed. He smelled of cologne, and Olli did not like him. Maybe that was natural, since they were, after all, here about the same omega. 

Olli pushed that ugly primal part of him back down. He stood up a little taller—he had a good ten centimeters on the man, which made him feel obscurely better—and turned back to the woman. “I have ID,” he repeated.

She eyed the guy behind him. Maybe it wasn’t just alpha-alpha friction Olli felt, because she didn’t seem to like the guy either. She turned back to Olli. “Can I see?”

He handed over his U.S. driver’s license, and she looked over it for a minute before nodding and handing it back. “Come this way,” she said, all business. Olli heard the guy grumbling behind him and felt a flash of satisfaction, but it was quickly drowned out by the prospect of what he was going to do now. He was going to fuck some strange omega, and there was no particular reason to believe that _they_ would be clean or undiseased, either. Quite possibly they wouldn’t. 

The woman—Tracy, her name tag said—took Olli down the hall. “He was barely coherent, and that was ten minutes ago,” she said. “I’ve seen omegas in heat before, but I’ve never seen it like this. You sure you’re up to it, kid?”

“I’m not a kid,” Olli said stiffly. “And if someone needs my help, I want to help.”

She gave him another long look, nodded something that looked like approval, and swung a door open. A heavy sour-salt odor of heat leaked from under another door on the opposite side of the room. Olli’s cock instantly began to thicken in his pants. 

Tracy turned to him with paperwork. “Need you to sign this. Standard heat release form, you don’t hold us responsible for anything that might go wrong.”

Olli tried to skim, but the words swam in front of him. He bent to the table and quickly scrawled his name. When he straightened, the woman thrust a plastic bag in his hands. He peered inside: condoms, water, generic-brand granola bars, a small black electronic device. 

“Walkie-talkie,” Tracy said. “Call if you need anything.”

“Okay,” Olli said, throat dry. 

She hesitated, and finally she said, “He’s a big guy. Not as tall as you, but you might have some trouble if he gets agitated. Give us a shout, and we’ll get security in there. All right, sweetie?”

 _Not a kid_ , Ollie wanted to repeat, but the words stuck in his throat. He nodded.

“Okay, then.” She nodded towards the door. “Good luck.” And she was gone.

Olli took a deep breath, which did a lot more for his cock than his nerves, and then he walked to the door and opened it. The room on the other side was smaller. A double mattress sat on a simple metal frame, made up with just sheets, and in the corner, turned towards the wall, a large man was curled in on himself and keening softly. “Hello?” Ollie called. He closed the door behind him and took a few cautious steps forward. “Hello,” he called again, louder. The man rolled over on his back and blinked blearily at Olli.

It was Sid. Olli stared, for a moment too shocked to think. “Sid?” Sid squinted at him, but Olli wasn’t at all sure he could tell what he was looking at. Olli stepped closer, sharply aware of his dick stiffening with each step. “Sid, it’s me. Olli.”

“Olli? Why are you here?”

“You’re in heat.”

Sid sat up, listing hard, and shoved the heel of his hand against his eye. “Yeah, I don’t know what happened. I. Fuck. I just had one a month ago, and it just, like.” Sid blinked some more. “Why are you here?”

Olli licked his lips. “Do you need me to knot you?”

Sid’s eyes got big with surprise and—hope? “You’d do that? No, wait, you can’t do that. Fuck.” He shook his head like a horse trying to shake away a fly. “Fuck, you’re like fifteen.”

“I’m nineteen,” Olli said. Sid’s heat was affecting more than Olli’s cock now. His breath was tight in his chest. Need dripped through his veins, molten. He struggled to find words. “I came to help you. I want to help you.” And he did want. He wanted so much that he’d burst if he didn’t get his cock inside Sid in the next sixty seconds. He pressed a hand to Sid’s shoulder, and Sid closed his eyes and groaned. “You have to say yes,” Olli said, with what shred of self-restraint he had left. “I can’t knot you unless you say yes.”

“God, fuck, _yes_.”

That was all Olli needed. He shrugged out of his coat. He fumbled at his belt buckle and zipper, and then he stood there in his boxer briefs with his dick high and hard inside them. Sid’s fingers were at his own belt, but he didn’t have enough coordination to be useful. Olli pushed his hands away and got him unfastened, and Sid lifted his hips so that Olli could yank his jeans off of him.

“On your knees,” Olli said. The words felt thick and unfamiliar, like someone else was speaking them. Someone in porn, a part of him suggested weakly. 

Meanwhile Sid was scrambling onto his knees and elbows, ass in the air. It was a gorgeous ass. Slick dripped from his hole, gleaming wetly and smelling of everything Olli had ever wanted. Olli stripped off his underwear and climbed up onto the bed. He got into position behind Sid and pressed the tip of his dick to Sid’s hole. Olli hesitated an instant, pausing for some concern he couldn’t quite grasp, and then he gave up trying and sank into Sid. Sid groaned, loud and not entirely happy, but then Olli came, hard and fast, and waves of cold sparks were rolling over him.

He lost track of things for a while after that.

When he came to, he and Sid were still tied. They were on their sides now, Olli tucked firmly behind Sid and snug against his ass. “Sid?” he asked tentatively. 

He thought maybe Sid was out for the duration, but finally Sid groaned in answer. Then, “Olli.”

“Are you okay?”

“What’s going on?” Sid asked. He didn’t sound even remotely lucid.

Olli thought about explaining, but it seemed too complicated, especially in English. “My phone,” he said. Then he reconsidered. He didn’t know where his jacket was, but it wasn’t in sight and definitely not within reach. “Or your phone.”

Sid’s hand reached out and flapped vaguely above his head. Olli followed the motion and saw the edge of a coat just hanging onto the edge of the bed. He stretched, but it was inches beyond his fingertips. “Sid, we have to move, okay? We have to move that way.” He shifted minutely in the direction he wanted. Sid yelped at the tug of Olli’s knot, but then he tried to oblige Olli as Olli shifted again. After several false starts and some more painful tugging, Ollie had his hand on Sid’s coat. He pulled it toward him and then felt in the pockets. There. He pulled out Sid’s phone and swiped at it, only to be faced with a password request.

“Sid,” he said. And again, sharper, “Sid. I need your passcode.”

Sid mumbled something.

“What?”

This time when Sid spoke, Olli was able to make out the numbers. He tried them, and they worked. He scrolled through the contacts and felt tears of relief prick his eyes when he saw the listing marked _Juice_. After a couple of fumbling tries, he managed to make the call. _Please answer your phone. Please answer your phone._

Jussi picked up. “Sid?”

“It’s Olli,” Olli said, and was startled by the croak in his voice. “I’m with Sid. He’s in heat. We’re in a fucking quiet room in some department store.”

“What the fuck,” Jussi said.

“You have to send people to get us.”

“Is he all right? Are you all right?”

Olli pressed his hand to the back of Sid’s neck. Sid was fevered and sweaty. He moaned under Olli’s touch. “He’s not doing very well,” Olli said. “If you could just get us out of here.” 

“Yes, fuck. Yes. Where are you?”

Ollie gave him the name of the store and barely remembered to end the call before he collapsed again and closed his eyes. Sid mumbled questioningly, and Olli squeezed his shoulder. “They’re coming to get us,” he promised.

The next time Olli awoke, it was to one of the Pens’ trainers calling his name. Olli blinked his eyes open and then flushed hot when he realized he was naked from the waist down and still in Sid, though they weren’t tied anymore. Olli wriggled out and away and grabbed at the boxers someone handed him. 

“How are you feeling?” the doctor was saying to Olli. Stewart, he thought. Chris Stewart. Beta. 

Words swam unhelpfully, just out of reach. Finally Olli managed to say, “I have a headache.” Now that he was upright, it pounded at the base of his skull. It made it hard to answer the next questions: how he found Sid, how long they’d been there. “I just, I heard the announcement, that they need an alpha. I wanted to help.” Another trainer, Cam, was talking to Sid in low, soothing tones. Cam was a beta, too. Everyone in the room was a beta except for Olli and Sid. Sid moaned in response, shrugging away from their touch, and something hard and angry twisted in Olli’s stomach. “You have to be gentle,” he snapped. 

“We’ve got him, okay, Olli?” Now Stewie was using that same soothing tone on Olli. “Let’s just get you dressed and get some water and aspirin in you, okay? You’ll feel a lot better.”

Grudgingly Olli obeyed. Stewie helped him to his feet and led him towards the door. “Sid,” Olli said, stopping abruptly. He looked over his shoulder to where Cameron and a trainer were helping Sid sit up.

“It’s all right,” Stewie said. “We’ve got him. We’ll take care of him.” 

Olli gave Sid another long look, but Sid didn’t seem to be in any new pain and he didn’t look up, so Olli let himself be led out the door. He closed his eyes in the car, and didn’t open them again until suddenly they were in an apartment complex that looked familiar. Jussi lived here. 

Stewie helped Olli up the steps, and Jussi met them at the door. “What are you doing, Olli? Yes, bring him inside.” As soon as Olli was in the door, though, Jussi wrinkled his nose and told Olli in Finnish, “You reek like a heat ward. Go to the guest bath and take a shower. He can take a shower, right?” he asked Stewie.

When Stewie said yes, Jussi pushed Olli down the hall with his fingertips. “And for the sake of decency and our cleaning woman, don’t sit on anything.”

Olli spent a long time in the shower. He got himself off again, and he washed himself thoroughly with the bar of alpha-strength soap he’d found in the cabinet above the sink. By then he could think a little better. Turning the temperature to cold, he stood under the spray, letting it slowly leech away the fevered arousal until he started to shiver. He stepped out of the shower clear-headed and utterly mortified.

And also without clean clothes. His old ones lay stinking on the bathroom tile, and there was no way he was going to put them on again. He stuck his head out the door and found sweats and a t-shirt lying outside. Finally, when Olli was dry and dressed and could think of no possible reason to stay in the bathroom any longer, he stepped out and headed for the kitchen. Jussi was at the counter. “Better?”

Olli flushed hot again, helplessly. “Yes.”

“Hungry?”

“Starving.”

“I thought so.” Jussi turned and offered Olli a plate of rye bread and sausages. Comfort food. 

“Thanks,” Olli said, newly embarrassed. 

Jussy sat across from Olli with his own plate, and they ate in silence for a while. Eventually Jussi asked, “How did you know it was Sid at that department store? Did you guys go together? Did he text you?”

“I didn’t know it was him.”

Jussi blinked at Olli. “Then why were you there?”

Olli blushed for a whole new set of reasons. “I heard the announcement, and I wanted to help.” He stared mulishly down at his plate, feeling oh so foolish.

“You were going to fuck some strange omega?” 

“You know how it is here! They don’t call in services automatically like at home. They just leave the omega sweating and leaking until someone volunteers.”

“So you decided to volunteer?” Jussi asked. His tone was fairly neutral.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to make a habit of it?”

“No,” Olli said immediately. He bit his lip and stared at his half-eaten sausage. “It was horrible, Jussi. He looked awful, and he was nearly out of his head, but I couldn’t think about anything except, well. Fucking him.” He snuck a glance at Jussi, at Jussi’s barely-masked concern. “Like I was just some animal wanting to breed.” He shuddered and pushed his plate away. The sausage didn’t look appetizing anymore. “Did Stewie say anything about him? Is he going to be okay?”

“It’s only a heat. I’m sure he’ll be fine.” 

It was not an ordinary heat, Olli was fairly certain. Olli had only been with an omega in heat once before, but while Amanda had been very enthusiastic in bed, she hadn’t been feverish or disoriented like Sid. Still, Sid would probably be fine. People didn’t _die_ from heats, even bad ones. And Sid had a doctor attending him, and a service alpha would be called in who was much, much better equipped than Olli. 

The thought was hot in his chest, like heartburn. 

Breaking in on these thoughts, Jussi asked, “Are you just going to sit there, or are you going to come let me kick your ass at Call of Duty?” Olli opened his mouth to decline, but he couldn’t have Jussi thinking he was backing down from a challenge like that. He shrugged and followed him into the living room. 

It was past eight and long dark when Jussi’s phone rang. He paused the game to answer it. His eyebrows rose as he listened. “Fuck,” he said at one point. “ _Fuck_.” He glanced over at Olli, and Olli felt his pulse pick up.

“What is it?” Olli asked. Jussi waved him away but kept on shooting Olli worried glances. Finally he handed the phone to Olli.

“Hello?” Olli said, confused. 

“Olli, this is Cam Ellingson. I was with the team that came to get you and Sid today.”

“I remember.” 

“How are you feeling?”

Olli paused. That unhappiness from earlier still burned in his chest, and he’d worked up more of a sweat playing Call of Duty than he might have expected. Mostly he just felt tired and kind of achy, down deep in his bones. He told Cam most of this, barring the unhappiness, and Cam heaved a sigh. “I was afraid of that. Olli, I think you’re in the early stages of bonding.”

“What?” Olli said blankly.

“The aches, the chest pain—that’s what an alpha feels if they’re taken away from an omega before the bond is complete.”

“I’m not bonded. What the fuck.” Olli paused, just to make sure, but he didn’t feel _that_ terrible. He was probably coming down with the flu. “How the hell can you tell over the phone?”

Cam sighed again. “Because I was already pretty sure. We’ve tried three different service alphas with Sid, and he’s rejected them all. He has every symptom of a bonded omega in heat deprived of his mate. He needs _you_ , Olli.” 

“How would Sid and I even be compatible?” Gauging potential bond compatibility was the whole point of those long, drawn-out courtships of the past, and the odds were no higher now than they’d ever been, although it mattered a lot less now that bonding could be induced with drugs, for those who still cared. 

“I don’t have any answers for you, Olli. All I know is I’ve got Sidney Crosby here going out of his mind and desperate for knot, and we’re pretty sure the knot he needs is yours.”

“No,” Olli said, fighting down the gut-deep certainty that Cam was telling the truth. “I’m done. I already helped.” He tried not to think of Sid, writhing in the pain of unfulfilled heat. They’d been separated for hours; had Sid had no one in all that time?

“And now we need you to help some more. You have to finish what you start, kid.”

Olli huffed. “I’m not a kid.”

“Prove it,” Cam said.

Cam’s tone sparked something hot and angry in Olli. “Fine,” he snapped. “Where is he?”

“We’re at a heat spa. I’ll text the address.”

Olli jabbed the screen to end the call. He looked up to find Jussi eyeing him worriedly. “I have to go back,” Olli said. His stomach turned over at the thought. He scrubbed at his nose. “Fuck.”

“I’ll drive you,” Jussi said. He waited for Olli to pack a bag, and once they arrived at the heat spa—a nice one, Olli noticed vaguely—Jussi waited with Olli until Cam came out to the reception area to meet him.

“Is he okay?” Olli blurted. That wasn’t the question he’d meant to lead with.

“He’ll be better once you’re there with him.”

“I don’t really know what I’m doing,” Olli confessed. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have...” He trailed off, too sickened by the prospect of what was going to happen next to be embarrassed anymore.

“I know.” Cam squeezed his shoulder bracingly. “Come on, I’ll get you up to speed.” He took Olli to a room farther back in the building, painted in soothing colors and decorated with watercolor prints, and sat him down to explain the details. The room was stocked with water and Gatorade and nutrition bars. There was a bathroom attached and an intercom button on the wall by the bed that could be used to call for help, if help was needed. Staff was on call 24/7, and someone would check in on them both once in the morning and once at night. 

Olli tried to take all this in, though he was distracted by the overwhelming sense of déjà vu. This was no different from the talk the customer service woman had given him this morning. The room was just nicer, with better furniture.

“Sid’s heat will probably last another three days or so,” Cam was saying. “Although it’s hard to say exactly, since this one’s running hotter than usual, so—”

“Three days? We have a game!”

“ _You_ don’t,” Cam said gently. “Neither does Sid.”

“Fuck.” 

Cam had a few other instructions—switching up positions periodically to help minimize aches and tenderness later, soothing Sid if he seemed distraught—but he assured Olli that even if he forgot all of them, he’d get along okay. “Your body knows a lot more about this than you do. Follow its lead.” Olli had the sinking feeling that he probably wouldn’t have a choice, if his experience that morning was any indication.

And then it was time. Olli took off his clothes and put on the bath robe the heat spa had provided, he took a deep breath, and he went in to Sid.

His cock thickened on his first inhale, but he hardly noticed; his first impression upon seeing and smelling Sid was an achy, bone-deep relief, as if a fist grinding his joints together had suddenly loosened its grip. Then Sid sat up on the bed. He was naked this time. “Olli?”

“Hey, Sid,” Ollie said, sitting on the bed. His next move was instinctive: he pulled Sid to him and held him tight and breathed him in. That painful grip relaxed some more. Sid’s face was buried in Olli’s neck. He shuddered—in fear or relief or need, Olli had no idea. “It’s okay,” Olli said, rubbing his back.

“God, this has me so fucked up,” Sid mumbled. 

Olli sat up, blinking. Sid sounded more like himself than any time Olli had seen him today. Olli pulled back to look at him, at his eyes, red-rimmed but clear. “Sid?”

“You’re here to fuck me, right?” The question sounded like a plea.

“Yeah,” Olli said. He was having trouble remembering why he’d objected before. 

“Thank God.” Sid pulled away and rolled onto all fours, and the sight and smell of him pushed the last of Olli’s hesitations right out of his head.

\--

Every couple of hours, Sid would stir, and Olli would fuck him again. A couple of times Olli woke up to food and water bottles thrust in his face, and he ate the food and drank the water dutifully. One time, he woke up alone, and he pushed himself upright, blinking in the semi-darkness. “Sid?”

“Just a minute,” he heard. Sid’s voice was rough and scratchy, but he didn’t sound troubled. Olli waited. Every muscle ached. His head, too, still felt a little tender, so he reached for a water bottle on the table by the bed and drank what was left in it. Eventually Sid came back to bed, smelling—new. Fresh. Wet.

“Do you need...?” Olli asked, patting at Sid’s shoulder to make sure he was there.

“Naw, I’m good.” A hand curled around the back of Olli’s neck and squeezed gently. “Go back to sleep.”

Olli lay back down, still gripping Sid’s arm, and after a moment Sid followed him. Sid buried his face in Olli’s chest, and his wet hair tickled Olli’s chin.

They slept.

\--

The next time Olli woke up, it was to the click of the door to the outside world shutting him in. He was alone, again. He sat up, suddenly overwhelmed by the stink of heat gone stale and by the itch of slick and sweat and come all dried to his skin. He was thirsty, too. That seemed an easier fix; there was a new water bottle on the bedside table, and he drained most of it.

He took a shower next, discovering every new ache, every patch of skin that a heat’s worth of fucking had chafed raw. He didn’t remember it being like this, the day and a half of heat he’d spent with his sort-of girlfriend when he’d been playing for the Knights. Of course that hadn’t been as long—he’d missed the first half of her heat because he was on the road—but he thought he’d been a little more aware of what was happening. What he could remember of Sid’s heat was mostly flashes of sensation: Sid’s shoulder under his grip, Sid’s ass slick and primed. 

After Olli got out of the shower and gingerly dried off, he went back and inspected the table again. This time he noticed a tube of triple-antibiotic skin cream, which he carefully applied to the most painful spots, and against the wall he found a stack of sweats, roughly his size and with the name of the spa written on them. He got dressed. Then he went to the door, took a deep breath, and opened it.

The room where Cam had given him his instructions was empty, but he’d barely walked into it when a beta woman he didn’t recognize popped her head in the outer door. “Mr. Maatta? Oh, good, I’m glad to see you’re awake.” She wore a nice sweater and carried a clipboard. “Mr. Crosby is just finishing his physical. Do you want to see him before you start yours?”

Olli adamantly did not want to see Sid first. He wanted to put off seeing Sid for as long as possible. “Physical first,” he said. “And something to eat?”

“We can certainly do that. This way, please.”

She led him to an exam room and gave him a protein bar and a banana to eat while he waited. In ten minutes another beta strode in. She smiled warmly, introduced herself as Dr. Matthews, and began to ask him questions. The first few were easy and general: how was he feeling, did he feel well-rested. Then they grew more specific, asking him about light-headedness, chafing, muscle aches, his memories of the heat.

He was still hungry, despite banana and protein bar, and a headache threatened behind his eyes. His answers got shorter and sharper. Finally, when she asked him for the third time how he was feeling, he snapped, “I’m hungry, okay? And I’m tired, and I want to be finished with these stupid questions.” The next moment, bewildered, he tried to apologize. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—um. I know you’re doing your job.”

“It’s all right,” she said smoothly. “I’m almost finished anyway. Just let me take a blood sample and then Carrie can take you to Mr. Crosby.” 

He didn’t want to go to Sid, but he held his tongue and sat still while she drew blood from his arm. Afterwards, Matthews said, “Now, I can tell you my findings privately, or I can tell you and Mr. Crosby together.”

“Together is fine,” Olli said, partly because he had no secrets and partly because he felt ready to nearly vibrate apart from impatience; he needed to get out of this room _now_.

“In that case, Carrie will show you to the consultation room, and I’ll be along in just a few minutes.”

Olli hadn’t needed a physical or a consultation when he’d been with Amanda for her heat. He kept that thought to himself. When the woman in the sweater came along and told him to follow her, he went. He was glad for a guide. The heat spa was a maze of hallways, occasionally opening into sitting rooms or looking out onto courtyards gray with old snow. Finally, the woman said cheerfully, “Here we are.” She opened a door and stepped aside.

On a couch across the room sat Sid, wearing the same sweats Olli was. For a moment Olli felt like he couldn’t breathe. He strode across the room, and Sid stood up to meet him. As soon as Sid was within reach Olli wrapped his arms around Sid and leaned down to bury his nose in Sid’s neck, and something painfully tight in him unwound.

Oh. This was probably what the consultation was about.

“Fuck,” Sid said in Olli’s ear. He was gripping Olli’s t-shirt with both hands. “God, Olli, I am so fucking sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Olli said, reluctantly disentangling himself from Sid. Sid seemed just as reluctant; he took Olli’s hand and tugged him down next to him on the couch. “Is it?”

Sid’s expression soured, but he shook his head. “They say it was something wrong with my suppressants.”

That didn’t sound good at all. Olli looked Sid over. “Are you okay now?”

“Yeah. I’ve got heat hangover, but I don’t feel too bad now. Especially, um.” Sid glanced sidelong at Olli, looking uncertain for the first time. He blew out a breath and said, “Especially now that you’re here.”

Olli bowed his head. He didn’t want to think about that, even as he sat there being grounded by the weight of Sid’s hip against his.

“Hey,” Sid said, knocking his knee against Olli’s. “Don’t worry. This shit is temporary. We’ll get it broken, and we’ll be fine.” Olli looked up to find Sid giving him a crooked smile, clearly meant to be reassuring, and Olli feebly returned it.

Matthews walked in then, trailed by a beta man Olli didn’t recognize, also wearing a lab coat. “I’m Dr. Matthews,” she told Sid, “and I examined Mr. Maatta. And Dr. Ainsley you know. Now, we can call your trainer in here in a minute, but I wanted to talk to just the two of you first.” She and Ainsley sat in chairs opposite Sid and Olli’s couch. 

“Now, obviously you’ll want to get this get confirmed by your own doctors, and we can’t be one hundred percent certain until we get the results back from the blood test, but from your symptoms we can be fairly confident that you’ve bonded.”

Olli sucked in a breath. Hearing it in those crisp, professional tones somehow felt different than hearing it from a trainer or feeling it when he touched Sid.

“But I’m on suppressants,” Sid said. 

“You had a heat,” Ainsley said, “so clearly something there failed. And the heat symptoms we saw, that was a dead ringer for a bonding heat. Fever, disorientation, extreme need for penetration—those are all classic signs. And you say you weren’t engaging in sexual activity prior—”

“No,” Sid said, sharp and emphatic. A moment later Olli realized that Ainsley had been referring to both of them, that he had wanted to know whether Sid and Olli had _already_ been sleeping together. Olli’s face burned.

Matthews cut in, “With that in mind, and considering your symptoms, I’d have said this looked like a classic example of deliberately induced bonding, probably with a slight error in dosage to explain the extremity of symptoms.”

“But it wasn’t,” Sid said. “We didn’t induce it.” There was a strange, high note in his voice.

“I’m just giving you some context,” Matthews said. “Accidental bonding like this isn’t common, especially with correct use of suppressants, but the bonding heat itself is a natural bodily process that many omega men and women experience.”

“Oh, so it’s just one of those beautiful life events.” Sid said. “I’m fucking relieved.” 

Off the ice and sober, Olli had never heard Sid swear in front of someone who wasn’t team. He caught Sid’s eye, and Sid glared mulishly back before returning the glare to Matthews. Apparently unruffled, Matthews replied, “It isn’t unusual, is what I’m saying. A bonding heat can be very unpleasant—”

“Fucking right,” Sid muttered. 

“—but it’s something your body is naturally equipped to handle and recover from. Medically speaking, we’re on familiar ground here, and we can take all the usual steps to approach the bond in whichever way you decide.”

Olli felt, obscurely, that he should rub Sid’s back until some of the strain had left his voice. Maybe his hand twitched, because Sid gave him another glance. Then Sid said a little more steadily, “You mean breaking it. We can get it broken.”

“Certainly, if that’s the direction you choose to go. There are side effects, of course. Irritability and mood swings, depression, possibly another unscheduled heat or two as your body readjusts, abdominal cramps, headaches, fever, sometimes extreme nausea. They vary with the individual, of course, and none of them are debilitating by themselves, but most people find they need at least a month’s recovery time before they can, for example, work a full eight-hour day.”

Olli turned to Sid in horror. Sid’s mouth was set, his eyes steely with determination. Olli found it soothing.

“And of course the time to full emotional recovery takes much longer, although typically the sooner you break a bond after it’s formed, the shorter the recovery period.”

“What about if we don’t get it broken right away? If we wait, say, a month?”

The Olympics. In just over two weeks, Olli and Sid were both supposed to be playing in Sochi. Olli fought down a fresh wave of horror.

“It’ll be harder,” Ainsley broke in to say. “The withdrawal symptoms are going to be more severe, and recovery’ll take longer, although it still won’t be nearly as bad as if you’d been bonded for, say, five or ten years.”

Sid nodded. “We’ll want to talk to our trainers and our coach before we figure out what to do.”

“Certainly,” Matthews agreed. “There’s a number of possibilities you’ll want to consider, especially if you choose not to break the bond right away.”

Sid nodded. “So my next question is, am I pregnant?” Olli stared at Sid; the possibility had never even occurred to him. “I mean, that’d really be a fantastic end to my week.” 

Ainsley said, “Again, we can’t say for sure until we see blood results, but if you’d conceived, usually we’d see your heat breaking early. So, probably not.”

Sid heaved a sigh. “Great. That’s good to hear.” He flashed Olli another reassuring smile.

Matthews asked if they had any other immediate questions—Sid apparently didn’t, and Olli didn’t even know where to start—and then the trainers were called in. Matthews and Ainsley repeated their findings, and the trainers asked questions that kept horrifying Olli in new ways, like, would Olli be able to tolerate other alphas now? Would Sid? Could they drive separate cars? Sid listened through it all, media face on, nodding and sometimes asking a question. Olli only listened and was grateful no one had any questions for him.

“So for now, you two will need to stay in proximity to one another, until you decide what to do,” Matthews said, as if repeating old information. Maybe it was, and Olli had missed it; Sid was nodding, unsurprised. 

Then they were standing up. Hands were shaken all around, and then Cam and Stewie ushered them out to a car waiting in the private parking garage, away from cameras and prying eyes. There was no question that Sid and Olli were sitting in the back, together. Olli saw how gingerly Sid sat down, and his chest tightened with new guilt.

Sid caught his eye. “How you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Olli said firmly. Suddenly it seemed important that Sid know that Olli wasn’t falling apart. 

“I really am sorry about this,” Sid said, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this shit. God, you’re a _rookie_. Shit.” He scrubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand. “How did you even—how were you even there?”

“I needed a new shirt.” Olli’s throat was dry. “There was a call, on the PA system.”

Sid stared at him. “They said my _name_?”

“No, no,” Olli tried to reassure him. He didn’t look particularly reassured. “No, they just called for an alpha, and I—” Olli was already so tired of telling this story. “I wanted to help.”

Sid stared some more. Olli turned red. He focused on his hands, fallen into his lap.

“Huh,” Sid said finally. “Okay, so, we should probably go to your place, pick up whatever you need while you’re staying with me.” When Olli blinked at him, Sid added, “You’re staying with me, right? I don’t think your hotel suite really has room for two people.”

“Right,” Olli agreed reluctantly. It made all sorts of sense. That sneaking disappointment that he couldn’t welcome his bonded into his home, that was just alpha hormones talking. Fucking hormones.

When they got to Olli’s apartment, Olli had to dig through his belongings, which the heat spa had piled together in a bag, to find his keys. Sid followed him up. “It’s kind of a mess,” Olli warned.

“Eh.” Sid shrugged.

Once they were inside, Olli saw his rooms with their stacks of equipment and clothes and shoes with fresh eyes and adjusted his assessment to _total fucking disaster_. Sid didn’t seem bothered, though. He watched quietly as Olli stuffed a suitcase with toothbrush and shampoo, changes of clothes, his laptop, and his phone charger. Olli ended up in front of his closet again, wondering whether he needed another couple of shirts.

“You probably want to pack for at least three or four days,” Sid said. “If you’re there longer, you can always come back. And I have a washing machine.”

Olli didn’t think about _longer_. He stuffed another two shirts and pairs of underwear in his suitcase and zipped it up. “Gear, too, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’ll get it.” Sid shouldered his bag. 

If Ollli needed gear, maybe he’d need a game day suit, too. He grabbed one from the closet, still in its dry-cleaning bag. “That’s it, I think.” In the suite’s living room, as he turned to take a last look around, he noticed his clock. In glowing blue, it read _4:58_. “What day is it?” Olli asked.

“Uh.” Sid glanced at his watch. “Sunday.”

They’d lost three days and a game. “We play tomorrow,” Olli said. He tried to remember where, and with whom.

“In L.A.,” Sid agreed. “On the moms’ trip. And then Phoenix. We’re not going, though.” Off Olli’s sharp look, he said, “We get this stuff sorted out, we’ll play Ottawa in Consol on the third. I talked to Dan.”

“Oh.” Olli shied away from thinking about what exactly would constitute things being _sorted out_.

The trainers dropped them off at Sid’s house. As he let Olli inside, Sid said, “We’ll take a cab over and get our cars tomorrow. Come on, you can put your shit in the guest bedroom.”

Olli followed him upstairs. It took Olli a moment to notice what deep breaths he was taking, but he didn’t stop. The place smelled like Sid—not that Olli had noticed the other time he’d visited—and there was something in that that settled Olli’s nerves. 

Obediently Olli put his suitcase in the room Sid pointed to. Once he had the suit hung up in the closet, he went out into the hall and wandered farther back, to the room Sid had disappeared into. The team barbeque at the beginning of the season had kept things downstairs and out in the back yard, so Sid’s bedroom was new territory. It had the same expensive look of professionally matched paint and curtains and furniture as the rest of the house, but a little more lived-in, maybe—dirty clothes spilling over a basket, the door open to the walk-in closet, bed covers rumpled. Olli supposed he’d be sleeping in that bed in a few hours.

Sid wasn’t there, though, so Olli turned around and went downstairs. He found Sid in the kitchen. “Pasta cool with you?” Sid asked. “I’m putting chicken on it.”

“Sure,” Olli said. He sat on a stool at the breakfast bar and tried to begin to formulate all the things he wanted to say. He watched as Sid chopped something at the counter, his back to Olli, and Olli tried not to the think about the muscles in that back flexing as Olli thrust into him. Olli’s face heated despite himself. Sliding off the stool, he said, “Can I help?” Better to do something than give himself time to think.

“Uh, there’s another cutting board in there if you want to cut the peppers?”

Olli found the cutting board and a knife. He washed off the red peppers in the sink, took a spot on the counter a ways down from Sid, and started dicing. He was halfway through the second pepper when a new thought occurred to him. “Fuck.”

Sid glanced his way. “Everything okay?”

“I have to tell my parents.” His mother would be so worried about him, bonding so young, temporary or not. He didn’t want to even think about it. “Unless—did the trainers call them?”

“You’re over eighteen, Olli. Medical information is private unless you say so.”

“Right,” Olli said, feeling a little hysterical. He looked over at Sid, calmly cubing chicken breasts. “You’re really okay. You’re fine.”

Sid gave him a side-eye. “Yeah?”

“How are you fine?” Olli set the knife down the counter before he tried to stab something with it. “Is this normal for you? Do you get bonded all the time?” 

Sid scowled at him, and Olli was suddenly reminded that, oh yes, this was his captain who barked disagreement at referees and checked people into the boards because they’d stolen his puck. Then Sid’s expression smoothed out, and he said mildly, “I’m not saying I’m happy about it. I’m just saying we’ll figure it out.”

“Right,” Olli said, feeling chastised. He went back to chopping peppers.

Dinner was fine, if a little strained. It helped that Sid turned out to be a good cook. Olli helped with the dishes afterwards and told himself it was to be polite and not because the idea of being more than a room away from Sid made his chest tighten. When the dishwasher was loaded, Sid turned to Olli and said, “I figured I’d watch the Rangers game.”

“Okay,” Olli agreed. It was, after all, Sid’s TV.

“I mean, unless you wanted to watch something else.” 

That was when Olli realized Sid was expecting Olli to watch whatever it was with him. So maybe Sid was feeling some of the bond’s effects, too, however nonchalant he appeared to be about them. “The Rangers are fine,” Olli said.

They started out on opposite ends of the leather sofa in Sid’s entertainment room. When the Lightning scored on the power play ten minutes in, Sid got up and went for beer. He came back with two and handed one to Olli as he sat down within arm’s reach of him. Olli scooted over a bit and took it. By then they were thirty centimeters apart, and what Olli wanted more than anything, back in the irrepressible hindbrain part of him, was to close that distance. He sipped his beer instead.

At intermission he got up and went to the bathroom, and when he came back he stood in the doorway, undecided. 

Sid looked up and said, “Do you need to be touching?”

Olli flushed.

“It’s okay. I feel it, too.”

“We probably shouldn’t, right?” Olli took a couple of steps into the room. “This is what people do to reinforce a new bond. It’ll just make it harder to break later.”

“It’s gonna suck balls either way. I don’t think an hour and a half of shared body heat is going to make any difference. And besides, I. Um.” Sid rolled his eyes—at himself, maybe. At the whole situation. “I was figuring on you sleeping in my room tonight. But you don’t have to,” he hastened. “It’s up to you.”

Olli considered his options, and then he went and sat resolutely next to Sid, hip to hip. 

“You sure?” Sid asked.

“Like you said, it probably won’t make any difference.” 

The skin-to-skin contact was a relief, as was being able to lean over and take a long inhale of Sid whenever he felt the need. This would get better later, if they kept the bond; they were in the honeymoon period, when a new bonded pair would spend all their time together, grounding themselves so thoroughly in each other’s scent and touch and taste that they could start to spend time apart again. 

If he and Sid just did what their bodies wanted, the bond would stabilize. It was the uncertainty, the holding back that was so hard.

Tonight, at least, they weren’t trying to hold back. Sid turned the game off midway through the third, Tampa Bay down by two and their coach probably wanting to strangle his penalty kill, and by then Olli was sprawled out lengthwise on the sofa with his back to Sid’s side and his head resting against Sid’s shoulder.

Sid got up, and Olli followed him upstairs. Without even thinking about it, Olli brought his toothbrush into the master bathroom and brushed his teeth in the sink next to Sid’s. By the time he was done, Sid had changed into boxers and a t-shirt. Ollli wondered if Sid slept that way every night, or if he was just trying, far too late, to preserve Olli’s innocence. Olli didn’t ask; he just went and did the same.

After the lights were all turned out, both of them under the covers but not yet quite touching, Sid asked, “You ever sleep with anyone before?”

“Of course,” Olli said, newly mortified. “I wasn’t a virgin!”

“No, I mean, have you spent the night with anyone before. In the same bed.”

Olli thought back to Amanda in London. “A couple of times.”

Sid heaved a sigh. “Okay. Well. I’m not usually real touchy-feely, but I think this is an exception. So.” He shifted over until he knocked knees with Olli, and then he slid a hand over Olli’s shoulder. And stopped.

Olli, exhausted and anxious and still strung out on the tail end of Sid’s heat, didn’t really think about what he did next. He scooted into Sid’s space and pulled Sid’s head to his chest. And then promptly flushed hot. “Um.”

“It’s okay,” Sid said, laughing a little. He patted Olli’s shoulder and shifted a little. Slowly he relaxed into Olli, like this kind of intimacy was comfortable and natural. It felt natural, anyway, no matter how Olli’s brain told him otherwise.

Now, in the dark, Olli could say it. “I’m really sorry, Sid.”

Sid’s breathing stilled. “About what?”

“About the bonding. If I hadn’t gone in, if I’d let that other guy help you instead, none of this would be happening.”

“Olli.” 

“I feel so stupid.” Olli pressed his face into Sid’s hair. Somehow it was comforting, and how fucked up was that? “I just wanted to help.” And now here he and Sid were, breathing each other’s air because they had to, because their sanity and maybe the Olympics were on the line.

“Hey, hey.” Sid pulled back a little and rubbed Olli’s arm. “You had no way of knowing we’d be compatible. I mean, what are the odds, right? Bonding on the first tie without even trying?” He snorted, and that was perversely comforting, too. “And fuck, if someone’s going to see me like that, I’d sure as hell rather it was a teammate than some alpha off the street.”

“I didn’t like him,” Olli confessed. “The other alpha. But you wouldn’t have bonded with _him_.”

“So the refs suck, you took the penalty. Two minutes in the box, and we’re back where we started. Right?”

“As long as the other team doesn’t score,” Olli pointed out.

“Eh. Our penalty kill’s pretty great. No sweat.”

Olli couldn’t believe it was going to be that simple, but Sid’s staunch unconcern and, more importantly, the comfortable, drowsy smell of him made Olli’s worries seem a little less urgent. Just for the moment.

\--


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Sid’s phone chimed well before Olli was ready for consciousness. Sid untangled himself, got out of bed, and took the phone out into the hall. Olli was nearly asleep when Sid crawled back under the covers. He slid in close to Olli again like it was natural, like they’d done this a hundred times. 

Olli took a little while, floating on the edge of sleep, to realize how tense Sid was. “What is it?” he mumbled.

“You should sleep,” Sid said.

But Sid wasn’t sleeping. “What happened?”

“Tanger.” Sid blew out a breath. “He collapsed yesterday.”

If Olli were more awake, this would have made more sense. He forced his eyes open. “What?”

“You know his girlfriend? She found him out on the back deck.”

Olli thought about that for a little while, and then he sat up. “Tanger _collapsed_? Is he okay?”

“They have no fucking idea.”

Olli stared down at Sid, through the gloom of what little winter morning light got past Sid’s curtains. “So, what does that mean?”

“It means Tanger didn’t go to L.A., and he’s taking a bunch of tests, and hopefully it’s just, I don’t know, the flu.” Sid heaved another sigh. “Look, we can’t do anything about it now, and we don’t have to be up for another hour. We should sleep.”

“He’ll be fine,” Olli said, for something to say. He knew Tanger and Sid had been playing together for a long time. 

“Sure,” Sid agreed. His hand slid over Olli’s forearm.

Olli let himself be tugged down into the warm darkness under the blankets. _He_ had no objections to going back to sleep, and this time, he had no trouble getting there, no matter how tense Sid was.

\--

Once they eventually got up, the day was spent on doctors’ visits, on examinations and more blood tests, on long consultations dealing with hypotheticals that depended on results no one had yet. Fortunately both Sid and a trainer were with Olli for most of those; he was glad no one was depending on him to keep all of it straight.

He was pretty sure he knew where it was all headed anyway. If he and Sid weren’t bonded, then they had a hell of a psychosomatic case of it, and meanwhile Sochi loomed. Olli still had trouble believing that part sometimes; he poked at the thought like he’d tongue at something wedged between his teeth. NHL rookie, nineteen years old, playing for Team Finland. Like hell he was going to let something as stupid as getting bonded get in the way of that. Or unbonded, either. 

Mid-afternoon, Sid and Olli drove in to Consol to meet with Shero. Just Shero—Bylsma, of course, had flown to L.A. with the team the night before. Sid gave him a summary of what the doctors had said. 

Shero nodded through it all. At the end, he said, “Well, this is a personal health decision and not one I can help you make, but please keep me informed.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Sid said, getting to his feet. Olli stood, too.

“Olli,” Shero said, “I’d like to talk to you a minute.”

Olli glanced at Sid. Sid shrugged and said, “I’ll be at the gym.”

Olli sat back down. Shero steepled his fingers and said, “Olli, I know this is a lot to think about, and not something you were probably expecting.”

“That’s true,” Olli said cautiously.

“I don’t want you to feel pressured to make any particular decision, all right? You know I was on Team USA’s selection committee. I know what the Olympics mean to you guys. But you’re a young player, Olli, and there’ll be other Olympics.”

“If the NHL lets us play in them,” Olli said. The Russian players would have revolted if the NHL hadn’t eventually let them go to Sochi. There was no one to care nearly that much about the 2018 games in Pyeongchang. “Maybe this is my only chance.”

“Maybe,” Shero agreed. “I just don’t want you to lose perspective. The Olympics last two weeks, but your place on this team will, we can hope, be a consideration for a long time to come. I would hate to see you do anything that would make it harder for you to be here.”

“Because I used to be bonded to the captain, you mean. You think it would be bad for the team. For chemistry.” Olli felt an unexpected flicker of anger. He’d been stupid, yes, but this was _not his fault_.

Shero sighed. “For the chemistry, sure, but also for _you_. Bonding is serious, Olli, even when it doesn’t last long. I just want you to make sure you’re taking it seriously. Talk to your agent, talk to family or friends before you make a decision about what you want to do here. And—” He paused, and Olli waited, curious. “And don’t worry about Sid. He’ll be fine, no matter what you decide you want to do, and Team Canada will muddle along without him if it has to. Don’t let the fact that it’s Sid sway your decision.”

“Okay.”

Shero gave him a long look, and then he nodded and said, “All right, like I said, keep me updated.”

“Okay,” Olli repeated, and got to his feet.

He joined Sid on the treadmills. It’d been four days since Olli had done anything other than sit, sleep, or fuck. It was a relief to get his blood moving again, to feel the burn of muscles warming up. Eventually they moved on to weights. Afterwards, as they headed to the showers, Sid said, “We should probably talk.”

Olli’s stomach twisted. “I want to call my parents first. Tomorrow morning—they’ll already be asleep when we get home tonight.”

“Sure,” Sid agreed.

That night Sid made hamburgers and Olli sliced onions and tomatoes. After dinner, they still had hours before the Pens game started on west coast time, so they each got their laptops and set up at Sid’s kitchen table. Without discussing it, they both ended up bunched at one corner so that Sid could nudge his bare ankle against Olli’s.

Olli had never thought about bonding, beyond a far-distant _maybe_. People cared less about the physical process of bonding than they had fifty years ago, and lots of alphas and omegas partnered for life without bothering to try and induce it artificially. Some even intentionally took hormonal blockers to prevent it, the same kind any unpartnered omega would during heat.

Olli’s parents induced a bond because it made it easier to have kids, but they told him over and over as he was growing up not to be in a rush, that he didn’t need to partner early any more than any beta did, that he never needed to bond at all if he didn’t want to. They reminded him how poorly _biologically compatible_ translated to _made for each other_ or _soulmates_ or any of the other ideas about it that came up in movies. 

He hadn’t been sure, then, why they kept telling him. He had soccer and hockey. He didn’t have time for an omega. And yet here he was, inches from the best hockey player in the world because he couldn’t bear to sit any farther away.

“Did you want to bond?” Olli asked. Sid looked up from his screen. “I mean, not now, not with me, but sometime?”

Sid shifted in his chair. “Probably, sure? Someday. After I retire.”

Olli nodded and turned back to his email, trying to compose something that would soothe his parents after they noticed him missing from the Pens-Kings box score—or at least, soothe them until he actually talked to them. There would be no making them feel better then.

Pretty soon Sid snickered at a movie on his laptop. Olli leaned around to take a look and saw some comedy he vaguely remembered his brothers watching the previous summer. Olli couldn’t see anything particularly funny, but Sid was still laughing, his shoulders shaking with it. Sid paused the movie when Olli gave him a look, and after taking a few more moments to get himself together, he said, “Would you mind if we moved this to the den?”

They picked up and moved to Sid’s sofa, and Olli finally got an email off to his parents. Eventually Sid turned the game on, and shoulder-to-shoulder they watched the Pens power past the Kings. 

It was after midnight when the last buzzer sounded. Sid was preoccupied as they padded upstairs to bed; Olli could practically see him diagramming plays in the mirror as they brushed their teeth. After rinsing, Olli said, “Tomorrow we decide, right? Now, or after the Olympics.”

“Yep.” Sid slapped him on the shoulder on the way out the door. Once in bed, they managed to arrange themselves with a lot less awkwardness than the night before, and they fell asleep without exchanging another word.

\--

Olli Skyped his parents in the morning. Because he hadn’t thought things through in advance, the first thing he did after waving hello was blurt out, “I’m bonded. Temporarily,” he hastened to add, which didn’t appear to help. He explained the whole story, although he maybe left them the impression that he and Sid had gone shopping together. It saved him from explaining that their son had been stupid enough to get into this entirely on his own.

His mother cried. His father said, “So you’re breaking it.”

Did his father think he wanted this? Surely he knew better. “Of course. Although maybe we’ll wait until after the Olympics.”

His mother thought this was a bad idea. His father clearly did, too, even though he didn’t say it aloud. 

“It’s the _Olympics_ ,” Olli repeated. “I’ll be playing with Teemu. And you already have your tickets. And your hotel room!” And many other things besides. The paperwork and prep was bad enough for Olli, but the coaches dealt with a lot of it, and Dana was personally overseeing all of Jussi and Olli’s gear. Coming as a spectator sounded five times worse.

He couldn’t let his parents waste all that effort. He couldn’t let Finland down. He couldn’t _not go_.

“But you’re all right? He’s taking care of you?” his mother asked.

Olli doubted it would do any good to remind her that he was an adult and did not need the captain of his team to _take care_ of him. “Yes, Mom. He’s a good guy, I promise.”

“I want to speak with him.”

“Mom—”

Still tearful, his mother said, “He has bonded with _my child_ , and I want to speak with him.”

Olli heaved a sigh. “I’ll go find him.” It was a short walk from the living room to the kitchen, where Sid sat with his coffee in one hand as he scrolled through texts on his phone with the other. “My mom wants to talk to you.”

Sid looked up. “Yeah?”

“She’s upset. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Sid said. Firmly, like when he spoke to the team before a game. Putting his phone down, he followed Olli back to the living room, and Olli put the computer on Sid’s lap. “Hi, Mrs. Maatta,” Sid said.

She squinted at him, clearly in no mood for niceties. “You bonded with my son.”

It was only because Olli was half-sitting on the arm of the sofa that he could see a flush creep up the back of Sid’s neck. “I’m sorry,” Sid said. “It wasn’t on purpose. We’re going to fix it.”

“You will take good care of him. You will only do what is best for him, and you will not take advantage of him.”

“Mom,” Olli squawked. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“It’s okay,” Sid said, laying his hand on Olli’s knee. The touch was instantly calming, which was in itself kind of irritating. But Sid had already turned back to the screen. “I promise,” he said earnestly.

“Hmm,” said his mother, supremely skeptical. “How did this happen? You’re his captain. How did you let this happen to him?”

“Mom, I already told you,” Olli said.

“I want to hear it from Sid.”

“Uh, well.” Sid took a deep breath. “I was out shopping—”

“We were,” Olli interrupted.

Sid shot him a glance. “Yeah, we were, and it just came over me all of a sudden, pretty intense. And Olli was there, and he helped me out. The doctors are saying it was something with my suppressants. Some kind of catastrophic failure with the batch.”

“It was?” Olli asked, before remembering that maybe he shouldn’t be questioning Sid’s story.

Sid glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, the doctor called this morning. It happened to a few other people. It might be why we bonded, too. Something about a hormonal spike.”

“Fuck,” Olli said blankly, and then remember his mother, staring from his computer screen. “Sorry, mom.”

She pressed her lips together, barely keeping herself under control. Finally, she told Sid, “You make sure you’re careful with him.” Olli felt like his face was on fire, but Sid only nodded very seriously.

There wasn’t a lot else to say after that. Sid bowed out of the conversation and left the room. Olli promised to tell his parents what he decided, and his mother cried a little more before finally saying goodbye. It felt weirdly final. After ending the call, he sat for a while and looked at the tiny icon of his mother’s face.

Sid was back at the kitchen table with his coffee and his phone. Before he could overthink it, Olli went over and gripped Sid’s shoulder.

“Hey.” Sid reached up and patted his arm. “Everything okay?”

Keeping in contact with Sid, Olli slid into the next chair. “I want to wait until after the Olympics.”

Sid looked at him carefully. “Are you sure?”

“I know the bond will be more painful to break later, but—” Olli paused, taking a moment to feel out why this decision felt inevitable, like he made it days ago. “I want to play in the Olympics, and this might be my only chance. And you’re not so terrible to be bonded with.” He tried to give Sid a smile, to show he was teasing. 

Sid snorted something that might have been a laugh. “You’re not terrible, either, I guess.”

Something about that warmed Olli unexpectedly. He ignored it.

\--

Olli emailed the decision to his parents and then screwed up his courage and called Team Finland’s assistant coach. It occurred to Olli ten seconds into his explanation that maybe he wouldn’t play for Team Finland; he was only nineteen, and maybe they wouldn’t want him if he was bonded to the enemy. But the coach just took a long pause and then said of course they’d give Olli the support he needed to be able to play.

Sid made all the other necessary calls. When he finally put down his phone, he said, “You want to go get some time on the ice?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Olli said.

It turned out the practice ice down at Southpointe was open. They drove down to the IceoPlex and geared up, and Sid ran them both through some shooting drills. When Olli finished, he sat back and watched Sid stick handle through an entire bucket of pucks that had been scattered across the ice. Olli didn’t get the chance to see Sid playing around like this very often, and the things Sid could do still blew his mind a little.

He got shaken out of his admiration when Sid flipped a wrist shot directly onto the tape of Olli’s skate. Olli looked up to find Sid grinning at him as he skated lazily in Olli’s direction. “Gimme that back,” Sid said, as if the ice behind him weren’t littered with pucks.

Olli felt his pulse pick up. He lifted his chin. “Make me.” 

In less than three seconds, Sid had the puck on his stick. He skated backwards with it, teasing. As soon as Olli took his first stride, Sid turned and sprinted down the ice. Goal. He crowed in triumph. “Hey, you think you can do better next time?”

“Yes,” Olli said. He snagged another puck and headed down-ice.

They kept it up until a woman appeared at the gate. She was there to coach her peewee team, she told them. “We could escape now,” Sid told Olli. “If we stay, we’ll have to sign stuff.”

“Whatever you want to do,” Olli said.

Sid brightened. “Cool.”

They stayed and signed things for the awestruck eleven-year-olds, and Sid grinned at them like he wanted to stay for hours, although it was only twenty minutes before the coach rounded up her team for practice. As they finally stepped off the ice, Sid said, “Team’s back tomorrow. Game the day after.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll—we should probably figure out what to tell them.”

“Yeah.” They’d have to tell the _team_. Olli was still dwelling on that thought as he followed Sid out to Sid’s discreet, dark blue SUV, and all the way back to Sid’s place. Sid didn’t seem to need conversation, and Olli was grateful. 

When they got to the house, Sid said, “We could have Bylsma tell the team, after the game tonight. That way we wouldn’t have to make any kind of announcement.”

“That sounds good,” Olli said, relieved.

“And tomorrow we’ll go by your place and get a bunch more of your stuff.”

“Yes,” Olli said, less relieved. As long as he was living out of one suitcase, he could pretend he was just visiting. That would be harder to do that when piles of his stuff were sitting all over Sid’s guest bedroom.

“It’ll be fine,” Sid told him. Everything was always fine with Sid.

That night it felt as though something between them had shifted. Sid seemed less aware of Olli’s moods and movements, less instantly alert, like the Olli switch in Sid’s head had flipped from _guest_ to _permanent fixture_. Maybe that was why Sid didn’t cook. Instead they ordered Thai delivery and ate it in front of the TV, and then they played with their phones until it was time to watch the game. 

It was not a good game. They sat together, of course, which meant Olli got an elbow to the ribs when the Coyotes scored their second goal, and when the game was over, Sid scowled all through his bedtime routine. Olli finished after him and found him already in bed, jabbing at his phone. Finally he looked up to see Olli standing there next to the bed. “What?” he asked.

“Are you going to kick me? Or elbow me again?”

Sid rolled his eyes. “I won’t kick you.”

Cautiously Olli got under the covers and pressed his ankle to Sid’s shin. It was ridiculous how much better he immediately felt, like there were happy endorphins flowing directly from Sid’s skin. After a few minutes Sid set his phone on his bedside table, turned off the light, and moved over until his cheek was flush to Olli’s shoulder. 

“Okay?” Olli asked, uncertain about this new configuration.

Sid took a deep breath and shifted a little closer. “You’re very soothing,” he said, in a tone Olli couldn’t read.

“Thank you?”

Sid made a grumbling noise, but he didn’t say anything else. Soon enough his breathing evened out. Olli fell asleep pretty soon after.

\--

Sid still seemed out of sorts when they woke up the next morning, although he was civil enough to Olli. Sid spent breakfast paging through texts on his phone from the team. “I’m not telling them anything. If they want to know, they can ask me to my face.”

“And what will you tell them?” Olli asked. 

“That it’s none of their fucking business.” He exhaled noisily. “Look, I’ll try to keep them off your back.”

It was a nice gesture, and Olli appreciated the thought, but, “You don’t need to do that. To protect me.” Not from the team, surely. Olli wasn’t excited about telling them, but he didn’t expect them to be mean, just obnoxiously curious.

Sid stared at him, and then he repeated, “I’ll keep them off your back.”

Disquieted, Olli finished his eggs and toast in silence. The feeling of unease increased when he finally turned on his phone and saw that there were messages for him, too: several each from Bortz and Beau, consisting mostly of punctuation, and a one-liner of encouragement from Jussi. 

Olli, however, was still fighting nerves an hour later when he followed Sid into the locker room. For a moment, the familiar buzz stilled, then returned at twice the volume. Bortz gave Olli a friendly slap to the shoulder. Jussi threw Olli a smile.

Most of the guys clustered around Sid, though. It took a minute or so for Sid’s voice to rise above the crowd. “Hey. Hey!” He stepped out of the group and turned so his stall was at his back. The room quieted a little. “Look, it was an accident, it’s temporary, and we’re going to break it as soon as we get back from the Olympics. So.” Sid took a breath. It was jarring to see Sid show nerves in public. “So if everyone could just not fuck with us about it, that’d be great. Okay?” 

Heads nodded. Sid’s posture relaxed a little. “Great.”

“Does the press know?” Orpik called from the back.

Sid shrugged. “If they do, they’re not saying. And I’m sure not telling them.”

There were some nervous chuckles. “Are you two going to be okay on the ice together?” Kuni asked. A couple of other guys murmured at this. 

Sid shot Olli a glance. “We’ll figure it out.”

“But—” Kuni began.

“We’ll figure it out,” Sid repeated, and he stared Kuni down until Kuni turned away, shaking his head. Olli wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Kuni was going to say. If the only other omega on the team disapproved of this arrangement, Olli didn’t want to find out.

It was good to be back at practice, to hear Jacques Martin yelling directions and watch Gibby give Zats a snowshower. For the first time in a week, Olli had something to focus on besides Sid. The power play, for example. Hockey. For a little while, he forgot everything else.

Only towards the end of practice, when he finally noticed the pressure that’d been creeping in behind his eyes, did he remember again. After the last drill, Olli skated over to Sid and followed him off the ice. As soon as Sid pulled his glove off, Olli grabbed him bare-handed. Sid startled, but then something tense around his eyes relaxed, and he squeezed back.

“ _Newlyweds_ ,” Neal coughed as he brushed past. 

Olli realized he and Sid were blocking traffic. He dropped Sid’s hand and looked away from Sid’s darkening expression. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

Sid bumped elbows with him as he turned down the hall again. “Not your fault.” 

Olli had to work hard to keep his hands to himself in the shower, and again afterwards, in the locker room. He dressed and then fidgeted at his stall, waiting for Sid to finish a muttered exchange with Kuni. “How are you?” Jussi asked quietly in Finnish.

Olli jumped. He hadn’t seen Jussi approach him; he hadn’t been paying attention to anyone but Sid. “Fine?” he said, scrambling to collect his thoughts. “I’m fine.”

“Do you want to get something to eat?”

The rubber band between Olli and Sid seemed to pull a little tighter. “Not right now.”

Jussi followed Olli’s line of sight and nodded. “This evening maybe?”

“I think that’d be all right.” 

Jussi squeezed his shoulder and left him alone. Marty dropped by next, the third and last alpha on the team. Olli could tell by his smirk that he wasn’t going to like whatever Marty had to say. “So—” Marty began.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Olli said. Marty’s mouth closed on his next words, although he gave Olli a shoulder bump and a wink as he left

Sid was done, finally. He glanced in in Olli’s direction and lifted an eyebrow, and Olli tried not to look like he was in too much of a hurry as he shouldered his bag and followed Sid out the door. As soon as they were in the hallway, Olli grabbed for Sid’s hand, and some of the pressure in his skull began to recede. 

“We’ll make sure we sit next to each other on the bench tomorrow,” Sid said.

“Sure,” Olli said. They were almost to Sid’s car when he mustered the courage to ask, “What about in Sochi? Will it still be this bad?”

Sid grimaced. “It’s supposed to get better. And there are pills to reduce the effects a little, if we have to.” In the meantime, though, he kept his hand on Olli’s thigh most of the way home.

After an hour or so hanging out on Sid’s couch, within touching distance, Olli ventured, “Is it okay if I have dinner with Jussi?”

Sid looked up, startled. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Olli floundered for a reason, and finally shrugged. “It’s okay, then?”

“Sure. Just, come back if you stomach starts hurting.”

Olli blinked. “What?”

Sid looked just as confused. “You know, from the separation?”

“My stomach doesn’t hurt. I get headaches.”

“Oh.” 

Olli looked closer at Sid, whose gaze was firmly fixed off to Olli’s right. “Your stomach hurts?”

“Like a cramp or something.” Sid waved Olli away. “I mean, not now. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Go, eat lutefisk or whatever with Jussi.”

“That’s Norwegian,” Olli said, scowling fiercely. “We have a completely different word in Finnish.” 

Sid gave a startled laugh. 

Success.

\--

Jussi’s wife let Olli in, smiling and apologizing for the noise—“Jaana is teething,” she said. She gave him a thorough update of all the girls’ recent accomplishments and didn’t ask a single thing about how Olli was feeling. He found Jussi in the kitchen, putting the last of the toppings on a salad. Olli followed him to the table with the bowl of pasta.

Liisa, the eldest, was sitting in an adult chair now. She ate bits of salad with her fingers and told Olli about the newest truck in her collection. Olli managed to gather that it was a dump truck. He asked what color it was, and she considered a moment before gravely telling him it was blue.

After dinner, Salla and the girls went to play on the living room floor, and Olli joined Jussi in the kitchen for dishes. “So,” Jussi said, handing Olli a plate to put in the washer. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” Olli said.

“You weren’t doing so well the last time I saw you.”

“At practice?” Olli asked, confused. He took another rinsed plate from the counter.

Jussi eyed Olli skeptically. “Last week, when I took you to Sid.”

“Oh.” Olli picked a green flake off the plate with his fingernail. “Yeah, I guess I was pretty freaked out.” It seemed a long time ago, now. Years had surely passed since he had woken up alone in that room and been whisked away to his post-bonding physical. 

“But you’re feeling better now?”

Olli shrugged. “It’s only temporary, right? Until after the Olympics.”

The crease of mild concern in Jussi’s forehead didn’t go away, but what he said was, “Well, I’m a beta. I don’t know a lot about these things. But things are all right with you and Sid?”

“Yeah, they’re fine.”

“What does that even mean, _fine_? Is it awkward? Does he make sure you’re comfortable? Are you having any difficulty with the, ah.” Jussi squared his shoulders. “Physical aspects?”

“Jussi!” Olli exclaimed. “We’re not—and even if we did I wouldn’t—I’m not talking about this.”

Jussi heaved a sigh. “I am not asking if you have sex. For fuck’s sake, Olli. I’m asking if you need to touch a lot. Because of the bond.”

“Oh.” Olli rearranged a bowl on the top rack so another would fit beside it. His face was warm. “Um, yeah, a lot of the time. We—” He dared a glance at Jussi. His face heated some more. “We sleep in the same bed. If we touch a lot at night, we can stay away from each other for a while in the daytime.”

Jussi accepted this without comment. “And he’s treating you well?”

“Why does everyone think I need _taking care of_? And don’t say it’s because I’m young. I know I’m young. That doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.” Recent evidence notwithstanding.

“No one thinks you’re an idiot, Olli. Just inexperienced. And also—”

“ _You_ don’t have any experience being bonded.” Nor did anyone else on the team, for that matter, except Kuni. 

“Also,” Jussi said, lifting a hand for silence, “some of us give a fuck about your wellbeing. You’ll just have to live with it.”

Olli grumbled a little. Jussi handed him the next plate without comment. A few minutes later, Jussi said, “You know I am always available if you need someone to talk to. I don’t know much about bonding, but.” He shrugged. “You’re not alone. All right?”

Of course Olli wasn’t alone; he and Sid were in this together. But what he said, sincerely, was, “Thank you.”

Jussi patted his shoulder and handed him a half-dozen wet forks.

\--

When Olli walked into the entertainment room that night, Sid muted the TV and said, “Cath called. Tanger’s girlfriend.”

“Oh?” Cautiously Olli sat down on the couch.

Tonelessly, Sid said, “He had a stroke.”

“Oh.” Olli felt pretty good about his English most of the time, but that was a new one. He could look it up later. “What do the doctors say?”

“They don’t know yet. He’s back home now. They’re keeping a really close eye on him.”

Olli didn’t know what else to say. More questions seemed dangerous. He shifted a little closer, so Sid’s thigh was a hot line all along his. Eventually Sid turned the TV back on.

\--

“So you’re going to be fine, right?” Sid asked the next afternoon on the way to Consol.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Olli agreed, confused. “Are you fine?” Jussi was right; anytime now, that word was going to lose its meaning altogether. Or maybe it already had.

“I mean during the game. You won’t...?”

“Won’t?” Olli repeated. 

Sid blew out a breath. “You won’t get chippy if I take a hit. You’re not going to take any stupid penalties to...” Sid trailed off. Olli waited patiently. “To defend my honor, okay? You’re my—bonded. Sort of, anyway, but I don’t need you smearing somebody across the ice for me. At least not more than usual.” He shot Olli a feeble grin: ha ha, Olli, making all the big hits.

Olli wanted to blow him off—seriously, he was _so tired_ of people worrying about him—but instead he took a moment to think about it. They were playing the Sens that night, and Olli imagined Methot on the backcheck, bulldozing Sid into the boards. He felt the usual flare of anger in his throat that came whenever a teammate got checked however legally, as well as that momentary twinge of concern he supposed everyone in Pittsburgh felt every time Sidney Crosby, concussion expert, ran very hard into anything.

He tried very specifically to think about _Sid_ , about how he would feel about his bonded out there on the ice. Mostly he felt worry. Would Sid be okay?

Shaking himself out of the image, Olli said, “I think I’ll be fine.”

They were at a stoplight. Sid gave him a long look, then shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”

“What about you?” Olli asked.

Sid looked startled by the question. “I mean, yeah, I’ll be okay.”

Olli got to have another similar conversation with Bylsma in the dressing room. This time—maybe because it wasn’t Sid—Olli got angry. “I can control myself. Do you believe what people say, that just because I’m an alpha I am a wild animal? I piss on the boards to claim them and bite anyone who gets near Sid?”

“You’re a hockey player,” Bylsma said mildly. “You’re all wild animals. Just, be aware tonight, all right? And if you’re okay, great. Nothing to worry about.”

“Okay,” Olli said grudgingly.

Afterwards, Bortz sauntered over to Olli’s stall. “You know, you’re way crankier now that you’re bonded. Is that an alpha thing?”

Olli didn’t even look up. “Fuck. Off.”

“Whoa,” Bortz said, hands high in surrender. At least he left.

So, yes, Olli was angrier than usual going into the game, but that was because everyone around him was an idiot. This would never have happened in Finland. People knew better. He fumed all the way through getting dressed, but then Sid came and sat next to him and put his hand on the back of Olli’s neck, and Olli began to feel better. Sid stayed there through Bylsma’s pep talk. By the time Bylsma finished, Olli’s irritation had given way to the usual pregame nerves.

Sid leaned in and whispered, “We ready?”

Olli was overcome by unexpected fondness. They were in this together, and if Olli were going to accidentally bond with someone, he could have done so much worse than Sid. “Ready.”

\--

They were not ready.

Fifty seconds in, Sid took his first hit. It wasn’t hard, but Olli felt it like a shock, like it was happening to him. Then he realized every man on the bench was looking at him. Olli tried very hard not to look pissed off—at the Senator _or_ at his teammates. Gripping his stick a little tighter, he worked on catching his breath and ignoring everyone else. Thirty seconds later Sid came off his shift, looking perfectly fine, and after that, Olli could feel perfectly fine, too.

Half a period later, Olli assisted Gibby on a power play goal, so that felt pretty good. He could still play hockey. When he got back to the bench, there were maybe a few more fistbumps and helmet slaps than he’d expect for an assist, but he’d take that as long as the team stopped expecting him to turn into an alpha rage monster every time Sid went into the boards.

He’d basically forgotten about the bond by the time they clumped back down the tunnel for intermission. He sat next to Sid in the dressing room almost without thinking about it, and when Bylsma stated talking adjustments for the second period, Olli’s mind was all hockey again.

At the beginning of the second period, it all went to shit. Olli was battling Turris in the corner, trying to dig the puck out, and just as Olli got it on his stick and turned away, he was crushed shoulder-first into the glass. Turris skated off with the puck, another Sen right behind him. Smith? 

Olli was slow to skate to the bench. He could already tell the shoulder would need ice after. He had just stepped off the ice when he heard yelling behind him. He twisted to look, but before he could see what was going on, someone yanked on his bruised shoulder, and then Olli was sitting on Orpik’s lap and had hands pulling on him from all sides. “What the fuck?” Olli yelled. “What are you doing?”

“Sid,” Orpik said in his ear.

Sid wasn’t on the bench. Olli looked out onto the ice and saw Sid grappling with Zack Smith. As Olli watched, Sid woudn up for a swing. “What’s he doing?”

“Defending your honor,” Orpik said dryly.

Olli leaned forward to try to get a better look. Then suddenly he had Kuni in his face, shoving him back against Orpik. “Don’t you fucking dare,” Kuni said.

“What?” Olli asked, too bewildered to be angry.

“You guys are supposed to be on the down low. Don’t you dare fuck this up for him.”

“He’s the one fucking it up,” Olli said, jerking away from Marty’s hold on his elbow and pointing out onto the ice. “I didn’t do anything!”

Kuni glared at him a moment longer, and then he shuffled a little ways down the bench and turned to watch the fight. Olli scrambled off Orpik’s lap and stood next to Marty. There wasn’t much left to see. Smith’s helmet was already off. Sid got in a punch to the cheekbone that knocked Smith off his skates and toppled Sid on top of him. A ref blew the whistle while another one grabbed hold of Sid’s jersey and started to pull him off.

Olli realized he was holding his breath. Shakily he let it go. 

It was a long five minutes, sitting through Sid’s fighting major. Olli should have been out there with Nisky, but Bylsma kept shooting him glances and sending out other guys instead, Nisky included. When Sid finally skated back to the bench, the players near Olli melted away from either side of him just in time for Sid slam down next to Olli, shove Olli’s glove off his hand, and grip his fingers tight enough to pinch.

“Ow,” Olli said pointedly. Sid inhaled sharply and kept on glaring at the ice, but his grip loosened a little. “We’re supposed to be keeping this out of the game,” Olli said. “What if the cameras catch us?”

Through gritted teeth, Sid said, “Pretty sure everyone who’s not a fucking idiot already figured it out.”

“Maybe, but—”

“I _can’t help it_ , okay. Just give me a minute.” Olli sighed, but he didn’t try to wriggle free. Sid slanted a glance at him. “What about you? You shake that hit off okay?”

“My shoulder’s gonna be sore. You can ice it for me.” 

Sid must have heard the rebuke; he nodded without looking Olli in the eye.

Eventually Sid let go long enough to crawl over Olli, so he could hold onto Olli left-handed while Sid’s bleeding right hand was salved and bandaged. When that was done, Bylsma leaned over and checked in with Sid, and then the Kuni-Sid-Gibby line got up and went back out on the ice. Twenty seconds later, Olli and Nisky headed back out, too.

The rest of the game felt a little anti-climactic, even the overtime and Neal’s game winner. Bylsma congratulated them all on the win and reminded them when they needed to be at the airport for the flight to Buffalo the next day. He stopped by Sid’s stall on his way out of the dressing room. “We need to talk. You, too, Olli.”

Sid froze, his pads hanging from his hand. “Can we do it tomorrow?” he asked tightly. When Bylsma hesitated, Sid added, “Please?”

“Sure. Tomorrow.” Bylsma slapped Sid’s shoulder and then Olli’s for good measure, and he left.

At that point the media was crowding in. “Better scram,” Kuni stage-whispered to Olli as he passed, so Olli got up and went to his own stall, halfway across the room from Sid’s, to finish dressing. He couldn’t hear much from that distance. Sid was still talking when Olli had gotten all his gear off, so he went over to sit next to Bortz and listen in.

“I mean, yeah, we were getting on each other’s nerves all night. Sometimes it’s good to get that out of your system. I don’t even remember what started it, to be honest with you.”

It went on in that vein: Sid avoiding the point in the blandest possible terms and lying outright whenever the opportunity presented itself. Someone asked whether they were seeing a new, scrappier Sidney Crosby. Sid laughed—it astonished Olli, watching out of the corner of his eye, how unperturbed Sid looked—and said no, he wasn’t planning to make a habit of it. “I’m still more interested in the offensive side of the game.” He laughed, a bit sheepish. Olli wondered if the sheepishness was another part of the act. Disquieted, he went and took his shower.

It was eleven-thirty by the time they both got out of there. They drove home in silence, hands linked. When they got inside, all Sid said was, “Pasta?”

“Sure.”

Sid divided the leftovers from the fridge, heated them up, and passed Olli a portion. Olli followed Sid to the entertainment room and settled next to him on the sofa with his bowl while Sid channel surfed. “What are you doing?” Olli asked finally. “You go so fast you can’t even see what’s on.”

Sid’s mouth set in a scowl, but after another five clicks, he settled on a movie, something older, with yellowed colors and tinny 70s sound. Sid ate his pasta and watched avidly, attention apparently fixed. The movie went to a commercial. Sid kept eating and saying nothing at all.

“Sid,” Olli said. “Tonight, what happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sid said.

“Well, I do! Everyone kept asking if I was going to go alpha during the game, and then _you_ get in a fight?”

Sid’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Low, harsh, he said, “I saw him hit you.”

Olli waited. “...And?”

“And, I dunno. I wanted to hurt him for it.”

Olli blinked. “Are you sure we didn’t get it backwards? Maybe _you’re_ the alpha.” 

“Yeah, no, I’m pretty sure I was the one ass up for three days straight.” 

There was no mistaking the bitterness in Sid’s tone. Olli backed away from that topic in a hurry. “Well, is it going to happen again?”

“No,” Sid said firmly. “I know to brace myself for it now.”

“Well, good. Because we have two more games before the Olympics, and I don’t want to get scratched because you fight everyone who gets a hit on me.”

“You sure?” Sid looked at Olli for the first time since they’d sat down, his eyes glinting with something like humor. “Might be nice to have a few days off before the Olympics. All I’d have to do is give Bylsma the word—”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Olli said, feeling a little lighter.

“Come on, it’s just the Sabres.” Sid was grinning openly now. 

“You’d better not,” Olli said.

\--

They had a supremely awkward conversation with Bylsma the next morning, in which Sid promised that he positively would not pick any more fights on Olli’s behalf. “That’s what we have Engo for,” Bylsma pointed out, and Sid flushed.

Bylsma didn’t have anything much to say to Olli. Afterward, Olli wondered aloud why Bylsma had wanted him there at all. Sid looked at him like he’d grown a second nose. “Because you’re the alpha.” _Moron_ was implied. Olli supposed he should be grateful Sid had gotten over treating Olli like a guest—and a fragile one at that—but sometimes gratitude was hard to come by.

“He knows I’m not actually in charge of you, right?” Olli asked.

Sid shrugged. “Beta,” he said simply. “Who the hell knows what they think.” 

The team flew to Buffalo, and the team was conspiciously silent on the topic of Sid and Olli sharing a room. The game itself was uneventful. They beat the Sabres handily and nobody got in any fights except Engo in a tussle with John Scott that everyone agreed was completely justified.

Sid and Olli managed to get through the game without having to hold hands on the bench, too, which Olli counted as progress, although Sid only took a couple of media questions about his point streak against the Sabres before excusing himself to shower with Olli, shoulder to shoulder. Again, no one said anything about it, although Bortz did flick Olli with a towel.

Two days later they hosted the Rangers and lost in the shootout, although Olli got the second star for his goal and assist. He was careful not to to be too excited about it around Sid, who fumed all the way to bed about missing his shootout opportunity. Olli ignored the muttering. He just crawled in bed after Sid and cuddled in close, and, like magic, he felt the tension begin to ease out of Sid’s limbs. Olli began to feel more relaxed, too, coming down off the last of the post-game adrenaline.

“You’re like a drug,” Sid said drowsily. He inched a little closer to Olli. “You should probably be illegal.”

“Because of the bond, you mean?” Olli asked, because otherwise Sid had just recycled some kind of really terrible pick-up line.

“Yeah,” Sid said. His words were a warm breath against Olli’s neck. “Can’t believe the IIHF doesn’t have regulations about this.”

Well, that brought some of the adrenaline back. “It’ll be harder during the Olympics,” Olli said.

“They make accommodations for new bonds. Like, couples housing. I asked Babcock about it.”

“Oh. Good.” It was good that Sid had taken care of it. They’d have to tell someone at some point. It was fine.

\--

Over the next two days, Olli slowly got a clearer picture of how things would go in Sochi. Yes, there were IIHF-approved drugs to numb the pain of bond separation. Dr. Matthews prescribed Olli and Sid a bottle each and warned them of the side effects, which included things like headaches, trouble concentrating, and slowed reaction times.

“I’m not taking these,” Olli told Sid. “I can’t play hockey with these.”

“Yeah,” Sid agreed, grimacing down at the bottle. 

Yes, Sid’s coach could get a room set aside for him and Olli. Sid explained this to Olli with visible caution. “Or we could room with Finland, if you want. You could talk to your coach about it. But the Canadian dorms are only like five minutes from the rink.”

Olli swallowed hard. It wasn’t like he and Sid would spend all that much time there. “The Canadian dorms are fine,” he said. “Besides, you don’t speak any Finnish.”

He talked to Coach Westerlund again, just to make sure. “I’m sorry to make this so complicated,” Olli said. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“We’re not going to tell you you can’t room with your bonded,” Westerlund said. “Especially not when the bond is so new.”

“It’s just temporary. Will you—have you told everyone?”

“The other coaches, the trainers, yes. Other officials with Team Finland.”

“But the team? Does everyone have to know?”

“We’ll tell Teemu, of course, as captain, and the alternates will need to know as well. I can’t imagine trying to keep it a secret, though. You’ll have to spend time with your bonded, and people will notice. And also they’ll smell it on you, I suppose?” Westerlund asked. Beta.

“I suppose,” Olli said, deflated. “Yeah, okay.” After he got off the phone, he went and found Sid. “Does everyone on Team Canada know about us?”

Sid looked up from his phone. “Uh. Yeah? Or they will.”

“Right.”

\--


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update on the schedule: I post MWF or possibly earlier if I get the chapter ready earlier and am feeling antsy. >.>

Late Sunday afternoon, the Penguin Olympians took an easy flight to JFK. They showed their passports and checked their personal luggage again—their gear had already arrived separately on a truck—and a little while later they boarded a flight bound for Moscow. The word _Olympics_ hummed in Olli’s throat and buzzed across his skin. He distracted himself with complementary episodes of _The Walking Dead_. 

Sid elbowed Olli as the credits rolled again. Olli pulled out one of the earbuds. “Yeah?”

“You excited?” Kuni asked, leaning around Sid.

Olli blinked. “Of course I’m excited.”

“You don’t look it.”

Olli shrugged. “We have a long way to fly still.”

“True enough,” Kuni agreed. 

Sid shook his head. “I couldn’t sit still at all, going to Vancouver in 2010. You’re so cool about it.”

“What he’s saying,” Kuni said, “is that you’re way more mature than he was at your age.”

“Screw you,” Sid said, laughing as he thrust his elbow towards Kuni’s ribs. 

Kuni threw out his forearm to take the hit and shoved back, making a face. “In fact, you may be more mature than he is _now_.” 

“Fucker,” Sid muttered, for Kuni and Olli’s ears alone. Olli only shook his head. It felt important to be teased, like Kuni hadn’t spent the last two weeks giving Olli the evil eye every time he saw him. It felt like progress.

\--

Olli woke up to someone poking him in the ribs. “We’re in Moscow soon,” Sid said.

Sid, whose shoulder Olli was leaning on like it was a pillow. Olli pushed himself upright and blinked at the blurry shapes of people in front of him, starting to stir, the flight attendant leaning over to talk to someone just ahead, and Sid, smirking at him. Olli looked closer at Sid’s polo. “I drooled on you.”

“Yeah,” Sid agreed, thumbing at the dark spot.

As the plane descended, they collected the debris of ten hours in the air. Stumbling blearily through customs, they hopped another flight—Olli fell asleep again and wasn’t even embarrassed afterward, because the west-to-east trans-Atlantic flight always wore him down to nothing—and then they were landing in Sochi. 

Once they’d de-planed, they caught up with Brooksie and Marty and Geno and milled around with the rest of the passengers, collecting luggage and trying to follow signs. Eventually they found the shuttle to the Olympic village. An official-looking person matched ID against names, and then Olli and the others wrestled their personal luggage onto the shuttle. Olli twisted in his seat to peer out the window. To the west he could just glimpse the sun glittering on the Black Sea.

Across the aisle, Kuni said, “So, are you excited _now_?”

“I told you I was excited,” Olli said, and it had been the truth. Now, though, ten kilometers from _the Olympics_ —or the coastal complex, anyway; the mountain events were somewhere else—the simple fact of it began to sink in. He, Olli Maatta, was going to play in the Olympics.

Even with that realization fizzing in his stomach, it felt like he realized it again when he stepped off the shuttle with his bags, and yet again when he spotted the sculpture of the Olympic rings, three times his height. The air was sharp and salty in his lungs, the sun was bright, and he was here.

And if that hadn’t convinced him, the processing center might have. A woman in a bright quilted jacket looked over their passports and handed them photo ID on bright blue lanyards that said _Sochi 2014_. She pointed towards the Canadian dorms in one direction and the Finnish dorms in the other. The fizz of anticipation fell suddenly flat.

Jussi slapped Olli on the shoulder. “Lunch? Around noon?”

Olli looked to Sid, feeling lost. “We’ll dump our stuff in our room and then I’ll drop him off for you,” Sid said. Jussi nodded and headed away. 

It took only a few minutes to get to Canada. True to Sid’s word, there was a room set aside for the two of them. The man handing out keys didn’t so much as blink at Olli. Maybe as long as Olli kept his mouth closed, everyone would just assume he was Canadian. 

Kuni followed them upstairs and peeled off to his room. Sid and Olli’s room was four doors down the hallway. “It’s big,” Olli said blankly, after Sid let them in. The floor was bare, some kind of fake-wood laminate, and there was enough of it to waltz on. The windows stretched floor to ceiling, and everything was full of light. Olli felt some of that excitement return. He set his gear down in a corner.

“So I guess we’ll just shove these together,” Sid said, eyeing the beds. They, unlike the room, were not big. Certainly one of them wouldn’t fit two hockey players.

Sid and Olli stopped by Kuni’s door on their way to the cafeteria. His roommate Shea Weber tagged along. She lifted an eyebrow in Olli’s direction, but all he said was, “So is Sutes here yet?”

At the entrance to the cafeteria, Sid hung back, and Olli followed suit. “There,” Sid said a moment later, pointing his chin towards a table. 

Olli saw Jussi first, and then he recognized the man across from him and two seats down. “It’s _Teemu Selanne_ ,” he breathed.

“Yup,” Sid said, grinning widely. “Welcome to the Olympics, Olli.” He nudged Olli towards the table.

“Olli!” Sami Vatanen patted an empty seat next to him. “How are you? Look at us, representing Jyväskylä!” He offered Olli a high-five. “Have you eaten yet? You should get food.”

Ten minutes ago, Olli had worried he might fall asleep in his meal; now he was suddenly starving, and that no longer felt like a danger. He went for an enormous sandwich and sat down next to Sami, who was sitting next to Teemu. It was almost like sitting next to Teemu himself. Olli had just taken a large bite when Sami asked, “So who are you rooming with?”

“Mm,” Olli said, his mouth full. He chewed mechanically. He should have thought of an answer for this. Why hadn’t he? Because he’d thought the coaches would have explained somehow. Preferably without actually telling anyone anything.

Teemu came to his rescue, more or less. “He’s rooming elsewhere.”

“What?” Sami said. “Why? That’s not cool. You should be with the rest of us.”

Olli swallowed hurriedly. “No, it’s fine. Um.” Teemu— _Teemu_ —smiled encouragingly at him from around Sami. Olli screwed up his courage and said, “I can’t stay with you guys. I’m bonded. Recently.”

“Shit,” Sami said blankly. “I didn’t—really?”

Olli wanted to hide behind his sandwich. “It was an accident. It’s temporary. We’re going to get it broken after the Olympics.”

“Shit,” Sami repeated. “So are you—are they an athlete? Are you still in the village?” The other guys were listening in, too. Sasha Barkov leaned in to hear.

Olli sought Jussi’s eye. Jussi shrugged. Well, Sid already said everyone on Team Canada would know. “It’s Sidney Crosby. We have a room in the Canadian dorms.” Sami’s mouth fell open. Eyebrows rose all up and down the table.

“Then temporary congratulations to you, Olli,” Teemu said. He gave Olli a smile so kind Olli wanted to sink into his shoes.

“Does this mean you’ll spy on Team Canada for us?” Sami asked.

“No,” Olli said.

After lunch, they poured outside, where Sami drew Olli’s attention to the long row of bright blue bicycles. “They’re ours,” he said, as proudly as if he’d personally acquired them himself. “For getting around the complex.”

Since Olli didn’t have a bike yet, Sami kept him company on the walk over to the practice rink. Once on the ice, Olli’s residual awkwardness around the greats melted away. Salo and Timonen gave Olli tips in drills where he defended against _Teemu Selanne_. He batted the puck away from the goal during a scrimmage and got a stick tap from Rask.

Sami skated up to during a breather. “Wow, right?”

Olli could only shake his head. “Yeah.”

Sami leaned in a little closer. “You’re really bonded to Sidney Crosby?”

“Yeah,” Olli said. Not even that could shake his mood right now. “It’s crazy.”

“He’s hot, right?” Sami noticed Olli taking a startled, automatic sniff, and his grin widened. “Betas can look at guys, too, you know. So am I right? Hot in bed?”

Olli opened his mouth. Closed it again. He thought of playing keepaway, just him and Sid, and how afterward Sid had grinned and asked all the little kids’ names. “He’s all right,” he said, rather than correcting any of Sami’s assumptions.

The team watched tape after practice. By the end of it, Olli had begun to feel stretched a little thin. He followed the rest of Team Finland back to the dining hall, hoping to find Sid there. No luck, but he did spot Shea and a couple of other Canadians. After a moment’s indecision, he made his way over. “Excuse me—” he began.

“Hey, Olli,” Shea said. “Sid was looking for you. He said to tell you he went back to the dorms—said his stomach was bothering him.”

Shit. “Okay, thanks.”

“I have to go,” he told Jussi.

“Take my bike,” Jussi said. He rattled off a combination for the lock. “You can check out your own later.”

It seemed like a long ride. By the time Olli arrived and had the bike secured, a headache was building behind his eyes. At the door he thought for a moment he’d forgotten his key until he realized it was in his jacket pocket. He stumbled inside and shut the door behind him. “Sid?”

“Olli. Fuck.” 

Olli followed Sid’s voice to the bathroom, where Sid was kneeling in front of the toilet. He looked up, face shiny with perspiration, and he stank. “Fuck, Sid.” Olli walked in and rested his hand on Sid’s sweaty neck. 

“Yeah. Pushed it too far, I guess.” Sid’s voice was hoarse. He bowed his head under Olli’s touch. Olli took a seat on the edge of the bathtub and reached for Sid again, but Sid took his hand instead. Olli lifted it to his nose and sniffed, and that pressure in his head began to ease. “And they say breaking a bond is worse than this.” Sid slanted Olli a wry smile.

“I didn’t know,” Olli said. “Can we—?” He tugged on Sid’s hand, uncertain what he even wanted, but Sid seemed to know.

“Yeah.” Using Olli for balance, Sid got to his feet and grimaced, rubbing at his knee. “Okay, next time, I’m definitely putting towels down first.” Olli didn’t get a chance to answer that, because Sid was pulling him up, too, and then Sid’s arms were around Olli and Olli’s nose was pressed to Sid’s neck. Olli could barely stay upright, so suddenly did all the tension in his muscles melt away. Sid seemed prepared for that, too; he backed up just enough to lead them to one of the beds and pull Olli down onto it. 

Olli had been right; it did not fit two hockey players. Still they managed, both on their sides and pressed so close together that the zipper fob of Sid’s jacket was a point of pain in Olli’s chest. Olli wouldn’t have wanted to be any farther away anyway. He hooked his leg over Sid’s hip to pull him that little bit closer, and Sid tucked his head under Olli’s chin. His breath was warm on Olli’s neck. 

“I’m sorry,” Olli said, in between inhales. He hadn’t even realized how much he’d been missing Sid. “I didn’t mean to leave you. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Sid said, already sounding a lot better. Dimly Olli was aware that Sid’s barf breath was not better at all, but he didn’t even care.

“It’s not okay. I have to—you’re my—” Olli stopped just in time. Or maybe not, given how Sid’s arms had stiffened around him. “I mean, not that—”

“It’s okay,” Sid repeated, a little more sharply. 

Olli flushed and hid his face in Sid’s hair. It was damp with sweat. “I left my phone in the room,” he whispered.

Sid’s chest expanded against Olli’s with his breath. “Yeah. We’ll have to be more careful. What was that, four hours?”

“Four and a half?” Olli hazarded. He didn’t know exactly what time he’d gotten here, and he really didn’t know what time it was now. This close to Sid, time passed differently.

Sid hummed. “I think we should eat together from now on.”

“I—okay.”

“I mean.” Sid hesitated. “How were you feeling? Before?”

“My head was starting to hurt.”

Sid let that thought lie for a while. “I think it gets to me faster than you.”

Olli tightened his grip around Sid’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m just saying, if you want to sit with Finland, maybe we could meet up after meals for a few minutes, or—”

“Sid,” Olli interrupted impatiently, “We don’t have to do that. Do you think I want you to be in pain just so I can sit with my team?”

“I’m not letting you miss out on the Olympics for me.” There was an edge to Sid’s tone. “You don’t have to take care of me, just because I’m—”

“My bonded?” Olli finished for him. “That’s _stupid_.”

“Seriously?” Sid shoved away from Olli. He promptly fell over the side of the bed and hit the floor with a heavy thump. “Mother _fucker_.”

Olli scrambled over to look. “Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”

Sid sat up, looking aggrieved. “Just bruised my ass, I think. Fuck.” Gingerly he rubbed at his shoulder. That was going to bruise, too, Olli thought.

“I know it’s not a real bond,” he told Sid. Sid jerked his head up to stare. Maybe the words sounded as wrong to Sid as they felt in Olli’s mouth. Well. Probably not. “But that doesn’t mean I want bad things to happen to you. You’re still my teammate.”

“Well, not right now.” Sid’s wry smile felt like an apology.

“That’s true.” Olli weighed his words. He didn’t really understand why this was hard. “I still want you to be okay, though. I want to beat you for real, not because you’re too sick to play hockey. That wouldn’t be any fun.” That tightness in his chest when he found Sid in the bathroom, looking and sounding so miserable—that was just the bond, or maybe Olli’s built-in alpha instinct. Sid wouldn’t want to hear about that.

“Oh, you’re gonna beat me?” Sid asked. He pushed to his feet wearing a real smile. “You know, I could come sit with Finland. It doesn’t have to be Canada all the time.”

“You just want to spy on us,” Olli said.

“Nah.” Sid bumped a companionable shoulder against Olli’s. “Like you said, I don’t speak any Finnish.”

\--

By the time they got back to the cafeteria, the rest of Olli’s team was long gone. He and Sid ate alone at a table, kitty-corner so they could hook ankles their ankles together. Sid asked him questions about practice—about the people, not the drills. Olli translated what Salo had suggested he try with breakouts, but he stopped when Sid’s grin spread ear to ear.

“What?” Olli asked. He didn’t think the advice was _funny_ , really.

Sid shook his head. “And here Kuni thought you weren’t excited.”

“It was Sami Salo!” Olli said. “Of course I’m excited. You know him, too, right? He plays for the Lightning now.”

“No, I get it. I felt the same way, playing with Mario. I’m not making fun. Just.” Sid shrugged, giving Olli a smile that invited him to see the joke, too. “I’m just not used to seeing you talk so much.”

“I talk,” Olli protested.

“Yeah. I guess you do.” Olli didn’t know quite how to read Sid’s expression, but it wasn’t mean.

Just as they finished eating, Olli’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “It’s Sami Vatanen,” Olli told Sid. “He’s at the Finland dorms with some of the guys. He wants to know if I want to go play table hockey.”

“That’s cool,” Sid said. Olli hesitated. “Seriously, I’m good for now. Go hang out.”

Olli ventured, “You could come with me.”

“Uh.”

“I’m sleeping in the Canadian dorms with you. You could come hang out with me. If you wanted.”

Sid thought a moment longer. “Yeah, okay.”

The woman at the door didn’t seem to recognize either of them, and she swiped Olli’s ID without comment. He and Sid found a handful of the team clustered in a corner of the games lounge the Finnish delegation. Sami and Sasha were currently facing off over table hockey. Jussi spotted Olli first, and his eyebrows rose when he saw Sid, but he only nodded a greeting to them as they walked over.

The news must have traveled fast; none of the goalies had been at lunch, but Rask didn’t so much as blink at Sid. “You came to steal our secrets?”

Sid laughed. “I swear I didn’t.”

Rask shrugged, supremely unconcerned. “It’s all right if you did. We don’t need secrets to beat Canada.”

“Is that right?” Sid said, grinning easily and dropping onto the couch. Olli settled next to him, just near enough for their knees to touch. Probably he should worry about that: how much better Olli felt about the world with even that much contact, twenty square centimeters through two layers of cloth.

When Olli went to take Sasha’s place against Sami, he found himself keeping an eye on Sid, which is how Sami scored the first goal. “Are we playing to five?” Sami asked smugly. “Or do you want to go snuggle with your omega?” 

Olli flinched before he realized Sami had said it in Finnish. Still he hissed, “It’s _temporary_.”

“Uh, okay.”

“To five,” Olli said firmly.

By the time Sami won five goals to three, Olli worried Sid might be bored, but Sid appeared at his shoulder and said, “Tuukka and me are up next.” He brushed elbows with Olli as Olli turned and headed for the couch. 

Olli meant to talk to Sami, but he got caught up watching Sid and Tuukka. Sid played table hockey like he played real hockey: with total focus. Gaze on the puck, reflexes primed, insensible to anything that wasn’t the game. His intent gaze was the same one Olli saw on the ice, only Olli was usually too busy watching everyone and everything else to look at it. 

Sami poked Olli with a toe, and suddenly Olli realized he was staring. He tore his eyes away, flushing.

\--

That night, in their makeshift double bed, Sid said unexpectedly, “Tuukka’s cool.”

“Yes?” Olli ventured. Obviously Tuukka was a great goalie, and he had a devilish sense of humor that Olli might yet take the brunt of, as a rookie on the team, but those didn’t seem like things Sid would comment on.

“I mean, we haven’t really talked before. I like doing that.”

“You do?” Olli said, bewildered. 

Sid shrugged against him. “You know. Because he’s O, too.”

Right. It wasn’t something Olli thought about so much, when he was with Team Finland. “That’s good.”

Sid hummed. A moment later, he asked, “You want to watch the Czech-Sweden game tomorrow night?”

Sid was the big spoon, and the words rumbled against Olli’s spine. Olli was already almost sleep. Sid’s arms made everything better. “Yeah,” Olli said. “That’d be fun.”

\--

They watched the first two periods, anyway, high up in the stands with Weber and Subban and Price, and also Sami for camouflage. Or something like that. Subban ended up just above Olli, and he leaned over the seats and he stuck his hand out to shake. “So the Olympics, eh?” he said.

“Yeah,” Olli said.

“Can’t believe you’re here?” Olli shrugged. Subban’s grin widened. “Yeah, me either. O fucking Canada.” 

Two periods was enough to see four Swedish goals and two Czech ones. “Fucking Jagr,” Subban said appreciatively. Sid excused himself and Olli and Sami—“Early day tomorrow,” Sid explained, and no one argued, even though Canada’s game wasn’t until the next night. 

When Ollli came out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth, Sid told him the final score, the same as when they’d left. Olli checked his phone and found a text: his parents had checked in at their hotel. They wished him luck.

Sid joined Olli on the bed. “Games tomorrow.”

Olli angled his foot to touch Sid’s. “I’ve been to World Juniors before. It’s like that, right?”

“Sure,” Sid said easily. Olli eyed him suspiciously. “Okay, it’s like World Juniors, but better. Hey.” He bumped Olli’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be great. You’re gonna do great.”

\--

On the ice, it was a little like World Juniors—except the crowd was bigger, everyone was faster, the forwards could backcheck, and sometimes Olli passed the puck to Teemu Selanne. Late in the first, Olli scored on a slapshot off Olli Jokinen’s assist, and as guys in white and blue converged on him to celebrate, it came to him: he scored a goal in the Olympics.

The thought after that was _I wish Sid was here_ , but Sid had meetings with his team.

After Olli and Finland slaughtered Austria eight to four, Olli had said a couple of words to the media and showered. Then he went looking for Sid. It was a short search, because Sid was standing just outside the dressing room. Automatically Olli leaned in. Having Sid so close made Olli aware of tension in his neck that was bound to mean a headache before too long.

Sid put a hand out to stop him and glanced up the hall. And yeah, okay, maybe they should avoid looking bonded where any media person might see. Olli followed him out and across the campus to the cafeteria, and once they were inside, Sid pulled him into a corner and wrapped his arms around him. There was a tremor in his words as he said, “Great game.”

“I scored,” Olli said against his neck. “Did you see?”

“I watched the highlights. That was a great shot.”

“I wish you could have come,” Olli said, before he could think better of it.

“Yeah, sorry. You aren’t feeling too bad, are you? I mean, I’ve been feeling pretty okay, so I figured you were, too.”

Oh. That wasn’t really what Olli meant. 

“Now that you’re here, though, I’m fucking starving.”

Of course Ollli was, too. He had just played a hockey game. In the _Olympics_.

Early in the evening, Olli met his parents at the Olympic rings. “I can’t believe you’re here,” his mom said, and she swept him up in an all-engulfing hug, never mind that he had twenty centimeters on her. He went to dinner with them outside the village, in a restaurant packed shoulder to shoulder with tourists, come to see the games. It was too loud for much nuanced conversation, which was fine with Olli. He did not want to answer the searching questions he could see his parents just waiting to ask.

That night, most of Team Finland joined Olli in the stands to watch Canada beat Norway three to one. Every time he touched the puck, Sami would nudge Olli’s shoulder, as if Olli needed help keeping track of where Sid was on the ice.

\--

The next night, Olli earned a goal and two assists on the way to a 6-1 triumph by Finland against Norway. Reporters swarmed to catch him as he headed back towards the locker room, and once he'd finally given them enough sound bites and escaped, his teammates swarmed him, too, for hugs and ass-slaps.

“Excellent game, Olli,” Teemu said, unusually solemn.

“Thank you,” Olli managed.

“Thank you, he says! So modest.” Teemu squeezed Olli’s shoulder, eyes twinkling again, and left him to undress in peace.

“Hot night,” Sami said from the next stall over. “You were smoking tonight, fuck. You are gonna get so laid.”

Olli froze with his fingers on his skate laces. “Uh.”

“If a game ever earned a guy a blowjob, it was that one.” Sami elbowed Olli and grinned. “And unlike some of us, you’ve got that shit on tap.”

Olli opened his mouth to protest but thought better of it. “Did you hear the score from the Canada game?” he asked instead. He endured Sami’s knowing grin in silence. 

In the shower, though, he couldn’t help but picture Sid’s dark head bent over Olli, his mouth warm and wet, eyes clear when he looked up but his cheeks flushed like when—

Olli broke those thoughts off with a start. The chub he’d been working on began to wilt, and he felt a little sick. 

He finished cleaning up in a hurry, and while the other guys talked about grabbing beer and winding down in the Team Finland lounge, he snuck out and made his way over to the other arena, where Canada had played Austria. Halfway there, he spotted Sid coming towards him in Canada red.

“Hey,” Sid said. “Heard you guys won.”

“You, too,” Olli said. He inspected Sid’s jacket. It was easier than meeting his eyes.

“You want something to eat? I am so hungry.”

“Yeah,” Olli said, relieved. Food sounded good. A distraction, until that post-win glow had worn off a little.

\--

Neither Olli nor Sid had a game the next day. Olli spent his morning in tape review, and it was still tape review, even in the Olympics. Finland watched their game from the previous night, and as a reward for his three points, Olli got some good-natured teasing over losing an edge on a play in the third. Then they watched parts of Canada’s game and talked about how to keep Jeff Carter from getting another hat trick.

They didn’t talk much about Sid—he’d had a quiet night, a single point on a Carter goal and only two shots total. Olli was weirdly relieved by that. 

His relief was short-lived. As the team broke up to go work out, Salo tapped Olli on the shoulder and beckoned Olli to follow him. There were a dozen things the team’s most senior alpha might want with Olli, but Olli suddenly had no doubts about which one it was. Salo took them to an empty corner of the locker room and sat them down on a bench. “The coaches wanted me to talk to you.”

“About Sid,” Olli said, because any other thing, the coaches could have talked to him about themselves.

“They want to know if you’ll be all right, playing against him.”

“I’ll be fine,” Olli said automatically.

“You don’t have to be, you know. It’s all right if you aren’t.”

Olli flushed hot. “Did they ask if I would pass to him if he called for it? Or fight my own teammates if they checked him too hard? Or try to fuck him on the ice if I got close enough to smell him?”

Salo squinted at him. “No.”

Olli looked down at his hands. “That’s the kind of thing they asked me in Pittsburgh, the first game we played. If I would lose my head.”

“Your coach in Pittsburgh is a beta?” Salo asked, although surely he’d know. Everyone knew Roy and Tortorella were the only alpha head coaches in the league, and Boudreau was the only omega. Olli nodded. “Betas are idiots,” Salo said, so quietly Olli wasn’t sure Salo was talking to him anymore. “About this, they are idiots. No, Olli. They wanted me to ask if the strain would be too much. Opposing your bonded is not an easy thing, especially on a very fresh bond.”

Olli thought of and discarded a half a dozen replies. _I’ll be fine_. _It’s only one game._ _It’s only temporary_. _It’s not a real bond._ But his burst of anger had left him deflated, unsure, and what he finally said was, “I don’t know very much about bonding.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like, or if it’s going to make me do—things. If it’s going to fuck up my hockey. And Sid doesn’t know either, or at least—” Olli tried to gather his thoughts. “At least he doesn’t talk to me about it. He got in a fight,” Olli confessed. It felt like a confession—or a betrayal, to talk to someone about Sid, but that didn’t seem quite fair, either. He looked to Salo, for judgment or for pity, but found neither. “For me. He got in a fight for me, when I took a hard check. But I didn’t fight anyone. I don’t know what that means—any of it.” Now he flushed with embarrassment over spilling all of this to veteran defenseman Sami Salo, who surely had so many better things to do with his time. “So, um. I don’t know what it’ll be like tomorrow. I’ve never played against him before.”

“That does sound like a lot of things you don’t know,” Salo said neutrally.

Olli eyed the locker across from him. Someone had left a sock crumpled in the corner. “Yeah.”

“Which isn’t really a surprise, because you’ve never been bonded before. So it makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Olli dared a glance Salo’s way. Salo met his gaze evenly—even kindly, maybe. “I guess?”

“Here’s a little secret my father told me before I bonded, as I’m sure your father would have told you, in better circumstances. Every bond is different.”

Olli waited for the rest. There didn’t seem to be any. “Okay?”

Salo nodded sagely. “You and Crosby are two unique people, so of course your bond is unique as well. The roaring alpha and the meek omega—that is beta bullshit, as you figured out already.”

“Yeah,” Olli agreed, chagrined. 

“So you have to figure out for yourselves how your bond works—like any beta couple, really.”

“Except with more—touching,” Olli said, for lack of a better word.

“Some of us consider that a perk,” Salo said, nudging Olli with his knee.

Olli couldn’t meet his eye anymore. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s a temporary bond. We just have to hold it together for a couple more weeks.” Salo opened his mouth to respond, and Olli hurried to say, “But I still don’t know if I’ll be okay during the game.”

“Well,” Salo said, pushing to his feet. “I guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

\--

Just before warmups, Olli and Sid met in a trainer’s room and leaned into each other for a few minutes. Olli’s hand curled around the back of Sid’s neck like it belonged there, and Sid took deep, slow breaths of Olli’s air. When the knock came on the door from one of Canada’s trainers, Sid stepped back and punched Olli lightly in the shoulder. “Do awesome, okay?”

“Okay,” Olli said, not quite able to hold back his grin. That same awe was building him again.

“But not too awesome,” Sid added, mock-serious.

A minute into the game, Olli sat on the bench and watched Tuomu Ruutu drill Sid into the boards. Time slowed, and it seemed to Olli that it took a long, long while for Sid to recover enough to return to the bench. As he skated in, he caught Olli’s eye and flashed him a grin, and time resumed. Sound filled his ears again, where there’d been only silence. 

Only then did Olli notice the breathless hush all up and down the bench. A few of the guys were looking at him. He struggled to look like he didn’t notice. Olli’d already been down this road; why did it feel harder now than a week ago?

Ruutu came off shift twenty seconds later. He peered down the bench to Olli and said gruffly, “Sorry, kid.”

“It’s hockey,” Olli said, hot with embarrassment. Ruutu nodded approvingly. 

Ruutu’s hit set the tone. Both sides checked hard and often. The game started off fairly evenly—tied for shots in the first, a goal to Doughty here, a goal to Ruutu there—but Canada’s defense was stifling, and by the end of the third, tied, Canada was murdering Finland in shots, and it was only Tuukka holding them together.

They went back out there for OT, and Olli watched Drew Doughty wind up a wrister and let it fly within inches of Olli, straight into the net. Game over.

Canada crowded around Doughty, first the players on the ice and then a flood of red hopping over the boards. Sid skated past Olli into the celebration, and in that moment Olli tasted something hot and bitter and angry. He turned away and skated to the Finnish bench, where the other white and blue jerseys were milling. “I was right there,” Olli told Sami. “If I’d just gotten my glove out there…”

“Fucking Canada, man,” Sami said, shrugging in disgust.

“Yeah,” Olli said, and meant it.

Olli hadn’t been on the losing side of a handshake line in a while. A couple of the Canadian players gave him an extra slap to the shoulder and a _Good game_ —a sop to the rookie, the youngest player on the ice, since Sasha was out. Maybe Olli would appreciate the words later, if he remembered them. 

At the end of the line, just before the goalies, was Sid wearing his white C. He’d met Sami with a polite smile, but now as he faced Olli, his expression twisted into something more complicated. Mechanically Olli took his hand. As he leaned in for an equally mechanical one-armed embrace, through the background reek of Sid’s gear and the foreground of sweat, Olli caught a whiff of something else: something not quite sweet, a little buttery. Something happy.

“Fuck,” Olli said. Sid pulled back to stare. Olli tried to pull his face into something other than a scowl. “Fuck,” he said again. He ducked his head and skated past Sid to Price, and then to Luongo in his Team Canada baseball cap.

The locker room was quiet, after. When most of the guys had their pads off and no one had escaped to the shower yet, Teemu cleared his throat, and the room grew quieter still. “We took them to OT,” Teemu said. “They were going to clinch first seed tonight, but we pushed them to third, did you hear?” He paused for a smattering of claps and cheers. “And we earned fourth seed for ourselves, which is no small accomplishment. We have two days of rest now, and after that there is still a lot of hockey to play. Well done.”

Olli tried to take the praise to heart. It had been a respectable loss, and Finland still had its chance at a gold medal. Still, those last seconds played over and over—Doughty coming up the left side, the puck whizzing past, the horn sounding. Sid, jumping into a pile-up of his teammates. Something churned sharp and sick in Olli’s gut.

“That sucked,” Sami said, slumping in the vacant stall next to Olli’s. His hair was wet from the shower. 

“Yeah.”

“We should go get wasted.” He grinned widely at Olli, like this was a joke, or like Olli was. Something.

“Yeah,” Olli said again, more forcefully. Sami’s eyebrows rose, but he held his fist for a bump anyway.

Most of Team Finland came along, camping out on couches in the lounge at the back of Finland House with a supply of sahti. “This isn’t enough to get drunk on,” Sami grumbled.

Teemu overheard. Far too cheerily for someone who’d just lost in overtime, he said, “Yes, but you only have two days to recover.”

Sami grumbled some more, too quiet even for Olli to hear. Olli wanted something stronger, too, to wash away the tight anger in his chest. He shouldn’t have come. People kept trying to talk to him, and Sami had gotten over his annoyance at the choice of booze and was laughing with Mikael and Sasha—Sasha who couldn’t drink at all because it’d fuck with the pain meds he was on for his knee. Poor fucker. He probably felt worse than Olli right now, although Olli had trouble imagining that.

And Sami was right—Olli had no chance of getting drunk on a couple of bottles of sahti. He drained the second one and scowled at the few drips still clinging to the bottom. But it wasn’t like he wanted to go back to the dorm. Sid wouldn’t even be there, because he’d be out celebrating with Canada, or else he would be there, and that—that would be worse.

“Okay?” Jussi asked. Olli hadn’t even noticed him sitting down.

“Fine.” There was one more bottle over by Timmo, still unopened. It didn’t seem to belong to anyone.

“Your knuckles are white,” Jussi observed.

“What?” Olli looked down. Deliberately he loosened his grip on the bottle and set it on the table. “Just—the game.”

“Mm,” Jussi said.

“I hate it. It was—it was my fault.” That wasn’t right. That wasn’t the root of what Olli was feeling, not even close. Still it was true. “I was right there.”

“Next time,” Jussi said, as though that were a comfort. 

Olli hunched closer to his bottle. As he watched, Salo reached for the full one Olli had been eyeing and popped it open. “I’ll be fine,” Olli told Jussi. He still didn’t want to go back to the dorms. 

Half an hour later, someone made a run and brought back another round, this time bottles of something Russian with a fruity flavor that turned Olli’s stomach. He drank it anyway. An ache built at his temples. “It’s not fair,” he told Jussi, who’d gone away and come back again in the time it’d taken for new booze to arrive. Olli rubbed uselessly at his head, which sent new spikes of pain through it. “I didn’t even drink that much.”

Jussi squinted at him. Olli didn’t understand the expression on his face. Olli didn’t understand a lot of anything, to be honest. “Is it because of the bond?” Jussi asked.

“Is what because of the bond?”

Jussi looked at Olli like maybe Olli wasn’t quite right in the head. “The headache? You haven’t seen Sid in a long time.”

“Fuck,” Olli said blankly. Olli had forgotten all about Sid. Only—no, there was that same hot coal of anger still burning in the pit of Olli’s stomach. He hadn’t forgotten that. But he’d forgotten how many hours it’d been since he and Sid had touched, and if Olli felt like this, then Sid had to be in pretty bad shape. “My phone,” Olli said. He shoved through his pockets and finally found it tucked in his jacket, where he had put it after he had—turned it off, as soon as he arrived. “I have to go,” he said. He pushed to his feet and then flinched as the motion got to his head.

Jussi took Olli by the elbow. “I’ll go with you.”

Olli’s head was pounding by the time they got to the dorms. They paused at the elevator while Jussi patiently asked Olli what floor he was on. In the end, Olli had to give Jussi his key card to open the dorm room door, because Olli kept fumbling it.

“Sid?” Jussi called.

“Hey, guys,” Sid said. He was sitting on their joined bed with his back to the wall and his phone in his hands. He didn’t look sick at all. “Shit, Olli! Are you okay?” He scrambled to his feet.

“You’re supposed to be sick,” Olli said. Or tried—he was finding it hard to form words. It was supposed to be better here, but Sid was fine, and Olli—

Olli shoved past Sid to the bathroom and heaved into the toilet. He couldn’t see quite right, and that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t had a migraine in years—not one so bad he puked from it. 

A hand wrapped around Olli’s arm. Immediately everywhere it touched was hot and sticky with sweat—or maybe Olli was hot and sticky everywhere—but after a moment, that strip of skin was the only part of him that didn’t hurt. He rested his forehead on the cool porcelain of the toilet rim.

“I can’t believe you let it go so long,” someone was saying. Sid. “Why didn’t you come back?”

“I forgot,” Olli croaked.

Sid made a disbelieving noise. He wrapped his fingers around the back of Olli’s neck, and slowly pain receded from there, too. “You turned your phone off.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to fucking talk to you,” Olli said. 

“Uh. Okay.”

Olli turned his head. That miserable fury welled in his stomach. By now it pretty much felt like nausea. “I just lost to your team, Sid. In the _Olympics_. I just wanted to hang out with the guys and not look at you, okay?”

“Right, sorry. That’s fair.” The hand on Olli’s neck squeezed, ever so lightly. Olli closed his eyes and inhaled, exhaled, reaching for the calm that he knew must lie somewhere just beyond him. The second breath in set him coughing. That brought bile burning at his throat, and he sat up on his knees and retched for a while.

“Maybe we need more contact?” Sid said. “We could go to bed?”

Olli swallowed hard. “Maybe.” He let Sid help him to his feet. Sid kept his hand on Olli as Olli stripped, and then Sid pulled him down and spooned him from behind, his knees wedged behind Olli’s. That was better, Olli thought. It had to be better, Sid’s bare chest pressed to Olli’s back and his breath warm at the nape of Olli’s neck. Right? 

He saw Sid in the handshake line again, his face screwed up with some kind of conflicted feeling. Olli hadn’t felt conflicted at all. He still didn’t. He still—

“You’re still really tense,” Sid said. He stroked an arc across Olli’s belly.

Olli’s exhale was shaky. He squeezed his eyes more tightly shut. “I’m just mad,” he said. “I was right there, but then—and then you—” He ground his fist into the mattress, to keep from doing something worse with it.

Sid’s hand stilled. After a pause, he said, “I’m sorry.”

Olli wrenched himself away from Sid and sat up to scowl at him. “You fucking are not. You aren’t sorry. You—you can’t be sorry for winning.” That was so essentially wrong Olli couldn’t stand it—wrong in some way different than all the other wrongness he was already feeling. 

Sid spread his hands. “I’m sorry it was us that beat you.”

“You didn’t even score,” Olli spit. 

“Uh—”

“You didn’t score, but you still won and you did it—” Something hot and bright and awful burst in Olli’s chest. His eyes started to flood with it. His vision blurred. “You did it without me.” He squeezed his eyes shut to keep back the tears, and then he bowed his head so at least Sid wouldn’t see them.

The bed shifted as Sid sat up, too. “Without you?”

“You skated right past me to—because you won, and everyone—and then when we shook hands I could smell you, and you smelled so happy.” Olli lost his last sliver of control and started to sob. He couldn’t catch his breath. Everything was too bright, and his head still hurt. 

Sid’s arms closed around him. “Olli, I don’t think this is right.” 

Finally Sid understood. Nothing was right.

“I want us to go see a medic, okay?”

Olli blinked tears out of his eyes. “Why?” he croaked.

“Because you’re freaking me out a little.”

“I don’t want to see a medic. It’ll just be some beta.” They wouldn’t understand. They’d think it was just another _hormone_ problem, because fuck those bonded pairs and their hormones anyway.

“Still,” Sid said.

Olli pulled away. “You’re not my captain here.”

This time Sid gripped Olli’s wrist. He peered into Olli’s eyes, open and earnest, and he said, “No, but I’m still your bonded.”

Olli’s breath caught. Then he coughed on another sob. Through it, Sid held his gaze and his wrist, and when Olli could speak again, he said, “Okay.”

Sid let go of him just long enough for each of them to put on some clothes and then hats and coats. He held Olli’s hand on the elevator and even as they walked across the complex, where anyone could see. Sid’s warm, unyielding grip settled Olli in himself a little, and the breeze off the Black Sea blew away some of that angry fog in his head. He began to feel a little self-conscious. “Sid?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t mean to get so mad.”

Sid squeezed his hand. “I know.”

“We don’t have to go the clinic.”

Sid swung around to look him in the eye. Sharp black shadows from the lamp overhead hid his expression. “You sound a little better.”

Olli shrugged tightly. “I don’t think I’m going to punch anyone now.”

“Well. That’s good.”

“We could wait until tomorrow.” Olli still didn’t want to go at all, but a few hour’s respite sounded better than nothing. In the pause that followed, Olli sniffed, trying to catch a glimpse of what Sid might be feeling, but Olli’s nose was too clogged to smell anything. 

“It won’t be that bad,” Sid said finally. “Let’s just get it over with, eh?” He squeezed Olli’s hand again, and somehow that convinced Olli more than any argument Sid might have made.

It was after three in the morning when they arrived at the athlete’s clinic, but the lights were still bright, and the office was bustling. Soon enough Sid and Olli were sitting shoulder to shoulder on an exam table, waiting. The doctor who arrived shortly after was maybe in her fifties, with glasses and gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. Sid gave her the backstory—the accidental bond, the decision to keep it through the Olympics, the Finland versus Canada game. “Do you want to tell her what happened then?” Sid asked Olli.

No, Olli didn’t. Nonetheless, he said, “I was so angry, because—because he’s my bonded. I know it’s not real, but it feels like it. And he smelled so happy, and I wanted to be happy with him, and I couldn’t, and he didn’t care.”

Sid stiffened next to him. “I cared.”

“This is all normal,” the doctor said in faintly accented Russian. “Your natural feelings conflict with the bond, and that puts stress on it. Strong conflicting feelings can also cause a feedback loop. And Olli, you said you could smell that Sid was happy?” Olli nodded. “How long have you been able to scent his emotions?”

“That was the first time,” Olli said.

“And you, Sid?”

Sid shrugged. “Sometimes. Not strong,” he added, when Olli whipped around to stare at him. Sid didn’t meet Olli’s eyes. “But yeah, I get a little something now and then.”

“So the bond is still stabilizing. Sometimes high emotion can trigger new responses in a bond. In some circumstances, this is very enjoyable.” Her smile was shaded with some meaning Olli couldn’t identify. Next to him, Sid cleared his throat. “But sometimes they only intensify the feedback loop, which is what you experienced, Olli.”

“So what can we do about it?” Sid asked. 

The doctor suggested the same kind of mild suppressant Olli and Sid had tucked away in their luggage. When Sid explained his concerns about the side effects, she said, “If you want I can prescribe you each a sedative. That will calm you both down for now.”

That sounded good to Olli. “Sid’s fine, though.” 

“I will give you each a prescription,” the doctor repeated. Okay, then.

Sid and Olli waited at the pharmacy window while the prescription was being filled. Olli found himself leaning into Sid, who was warm and solid and who—now that Olli’s nose had cleared some—smelled of something comforting, the way Olli’s grandparents’ house did. 

“You doing okay?” Sid asked.

Olli hummed. His eyes were nearly shut. It had been a fucking long day. “You?” he asked sleepily.

Sid shrugged, dislodging Olli’s weight against his shoulder. “Better.”

It took a few moments for that to wind into Olli’s head. When it did, he opened his eyes and straightened to get a look at Sid. “Better?”

“It’s fine now,” Sid said. Up until now, Olli had thought Sid had been fine all along. He looked Sid up and down—for bruises? Some visible evidence of damage. “It’s fine,” Sid repeated. “We can talk about it at the dorm if you want.”

Awake again, Olli fidgeted at Sid’s elbow until the person in the lab coat returned to the window with the sedatives. Sid and Olli walked back to the dorms in silence. This late, the village had quieted down beyond some drunken whooping—from medalists, Olli supposed, high on victory and relief. Suddenly the gold medal game seemed hopelessly far away. He tried to calculate the number of days until then, but he was four hours into the new day already, and he gave up deciding whether he should count it.

Olli was about ready to drop when Sid finally swung their door open again. He stumbled into the bathroom to piss, and then he contemplated his toothbrush and decided he didn’t care that his teeth felt gross.

“Here,” Sid said, offering Olli a capsule from the bottle.

“I feel better now,” Olli said, but Sid didn’t move, so Olli took the pillow and swallowed it with a gulp from his water bottle.

When he turned around, Sid was already under the blankets. Olli shucked off his clothes and climbed in next to Sid in his boxer-briefs. Sid pulled Olli in until Olli’s head was on Sid’s shoulder. Sometime in the walk back to the dorm, the last of Olli’s anger had drained away, leaving only a gut-deep squirm of embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

Olli squirmed onto his side and buried his face against Sid’s neck. “It was awful,” he mumbled.

“Yeah.”

A quaver in Sid’s voice reminded Olli of their earlier conversation. “For you, too?”

Sid’s grip around Olli’s shoulder tightened. “I could smell how you felt, a little. It was—hard.”

Olli imagined Sid being as angry with Olli as Olli had been with Sid and _smelling_ it, and his stomach swooped horribly. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Sid exhaled noisily. “If anyone’s going to be sorry, it’s me.”

“For winning?” Olli asked, half curious and half outraged but mostly asleep.

“For getting us into this in the first place,” Sid said.

That seemed wrong. Olli was going to tell Sid so, but consciousness was too hard.

\--

Olli’s alarm went off much too soon. He dragged himself upright, but Sid mumbled, “Turn it off. Coaches know we’ll be in late.”

Olli did what Sid said. As he lay back down, he wondered how the coaches would know. He thought maybe he remembered, very dimly, Sid on the phone last night on the way over to the doctor’s.

When Olli woke again, sun streamed in the window. He sat up to see Sid coming out of the bathroom. “Hey,” Sid said around the toothbrush in his mouth.

“Hey.”

“How you feeling?”

Olli took a quick survey. “Okay. Better.” He still had a bit of headache, but it seemed centered near his eyeballs—the aftermath of crying too hard more than anything else. “You?”

Sid took the toothbrush out of his mouth and rolled his shoulders. “Stiff. Okay. You ready for breakfast?”

Olli was so fucking ready for breakfast. It was after eleven when they got to the cafeteria, so it was more like lunch. Olli inhaled everything on his tray, including the stew whose main attribute on any axis was that it was brown. It was very brown.

Now that he was awake, Olli could work out the number of days until the gold medal game: seven, counting today. That wasn’t so long. Then a flight home, so make that eight or nine days, and then he and Sid could break this thing, and Olli could go back to being a normal person—singular, his emotions and body his own. Practically a beta.

Something in his gut seized up at the thought of that—something stupid and animal. Something that didn’t get to run Olli’s life. Still, he had to survive the next week. “Sid?”

“Yeah.”

“If our next games aren’t at the same time, can you come to mine?” Maybe Sid would hear the silent _please_. Maybe he could smell it.

Or maybe he’d have answered the same either way. “Yeah, Olli. I can do that.”


	4. Chapter 4

Two days later, Finland played Russia at four-thirty in the afternoon, and Sid was up in the stands. The bond alone couldn’t tell Olli where Sid was, all those romantic movies notwithstanding. Still, on the bench Olli occasionally felt a prickle of awareness of the rows of people stacked behind him, where Sid said he’d try to get a seat.

Olli mostly didn’t have time to think about Sid, though, or about Olli’s parents, who were also up there somewhere.. Finland got up by two, but Russia kept pushing and pushing, one shot after another. Tuukka held Finland and its lead together somehow, and they beat Russia three to one. 

Olli felt buoyant with the win and with that now-familiar prickle of knowing Sid was up there somewhere, watching Olli skate through the handshake line. Then he came to Geno, whose eyes were red and wet. The misery in the line of his shoulders was as suddenly familiar as a sense memory. Olli gave Geno’s shoulder an extra, unplanned squeeze. “Good game,” he said earnestly.

Geno nodded without meeting Olli’s eyes and skated on, leaving Olli unsettled but very, very grateful the only feelings he could smell were Sid’s.

That night Olli watched the Latvian goalie do magic against a barrage of Canadian shots. By the middle of the third Olli found himself hoping that Latvia would pull it off somehow—not just because Gudlevskis deserved it, but because sharing Sid’s disappointment now would surely be better than facing Canada in the finals later.

But late in the third, a shot on the power play made its way through, and that was the game. Fifty-five saves Gudlevskis made, only one too few. The thought left Olli uneasy.

Olli met up with Sid after, and his unease began to melt away. Olli pushed into Sid’s space for a hug without thinking, and once he was there, his nose filled with the almost-sweet odor of Sid’s joy. At first the scent of it twisted his stomach, kicking up the memory of the Finland-Canada handshake line, but the longer Olli stood there, the easier it was to simply be happy because Sid was happy. 

Somebody cleared their throat. It took Olli a moment to disentangle himself from Sid; when he did, he found Shea Weber in his Team Canada track suit, grinning at them. “So are you guys eating with us, or what?”

Olli ate a late-night sandwich in the cafeteria with Sid’s ankle casually pressed to his while Patrice Bergeron cursed at length over a second-period shot that just wouldn’t go. Later, Olli brushed his teeth to the sound of Sid’s tuneless humming as he rummaged through his clothes. When Olli got into bed, it was to sling his arm over Sid’s waist and press his knees to the backs of Sid’s knees. The win was hours old by then, and the fragrance of Sid’s joy had mellowed to contentment. Olli breathed it in without thinking, and then again, deeper, because he could.

\--

The day of the semifinals, Olli came back to the dorm room looking for Sid and a nap. It’d be their last time together before Olli’s afternoon game against Sweden, and afterward they wouldn’t get more than a few moments’ peace in a trainer’s room somewhere before Sid’s evening game against the US.

He found Sid sitting on the bed and staring into space, phone forgotten in one hand. “What is it?” Olli asked. He sat down and pressed his hip to Sid’s. This close, Olli could smell the uncertainty on Sid: something sharp and unsettled that tickled the back of Olli’s throat. 

“So we’ve been scouting the US team, right?”

“Right?”

“So Marty isn’t playing tonight.”

“…okay?”

“Obviously they’re not talking about it, but I got Brooksie to tell me. Marty broke his hand. He’ll probably need surgery. He’ll be out, I dunno, a month?”

“That sucks,” Olli said feelingly. “At least he got to play most of the games. Better than Sasha Barkov.” 

“You don’t get it. Marty’s _out_. For a month or more.”

The bottom dropped out of Olli’s stomach. “Fuck,” he said blankly. “And Tanger’s out—”

“—and Scuds’s foot isn’t really right, either.”

“Fuck,” Olli said again. Two top four defensemen out. And Olli would make it three. He felt sick. 

He pressed into Sid’s side out of instinct. After a moment, Sid reached over and put his hand on Olli’s thigh. “Okay?”

This was not, Olli realized, a time when Sid’s body heat alone could make Olli feel better. He stayed where he was anyway. “What are we going to do?”

“The team?”

“No, Sid. _Us_. You and me.”

Sid’s shoulder rose and fell with his breath. “What are we going to do about a broken hand, Olli?”

Olli pulled away so he could look Sid in the eye. “You know what I mean.”

Sid didn’t bother with denial. “I don’t—there’s nothing to do. We have to stick to the plan. Break the bond. Get on with our lives.”

“Our lives are _hockey_. Who’s going to take Marty’s minutes? Nisky already has most of Tanger’s. Who’s going to take faceoffs while you’re out?”

“We do have other centers,” Sid said, as if he weren’t currently leading the league in faceoffs. He knocked elbows with Olli. “We both know this bond thing sucks. Fuck, you were such a mess the other night. I wasn’t kidding when I said you were freaking me out. Look, I didn’t tell you about Marty so we could change our plans. I don’t know why I told you.”

“But maybe,” Olli began, his voice turning a little gravelly. “Maybe we should think about it.” He couldn’t quite, yet. The prospect loomed too large to even make out the outlines of. 

There was a pause, and then Sid’s hand landed on Olli’s shoulder. “Sure, Olli. We’ll think about it.”

Something in Olli kicked at the too-casual assurance, but he didn’t have time to think about it too hard. He had to go play a hockey game. He had to go make sure Finland competed for gold.

\--

Tuukka wasn’t in net, was the first problem. The stomach bug that had kept him out of practice yesterday was keeping him out of the game, too, which meant Kari Lehtonen was in with Antti Niemi dressed as backup.

The game was evenly matched in all the ways that counted except goals. Finland managed only one, a tip by Olli Jokinen off of Sami’s stick in the second period, and then Sweden scored two, one five minutes after the other. Finland pushed back hard in the third, but it was no good. The score ended that way, two goals to one.

The locker room was somber afterward. Sami sat with with his hands hanging between his knees, fixing the white board across the room with a blank-eyed stare. 

“Hey,” Olli said, knocking shoulders with him.

Sami barely looked at him. “We were so close. Another goal, we push it into overtime—”

“You got an assist,” Olli pointed out. And what had Olli done? All those minutes, and not so much as a shot registered. 

“I thought we could do it,” Sami said, fixing that stare on Olli. “I thought we could win gold.”

 _I didn’t_ , Olli thought, startling himself. He shifted away from Sami, chasing the thought down into a dark little corner of his mind. There he found the belief that Finland could never have torn that gold out of Canada’s grip. He could never skate the handshake line and try to be gracious to Sid in victory. It couldn’t have happened. 

Sid and Canada would beat the US tonight. In a few days he would win gold, and Olli would not, and the thought soured Olli’s stomach a little but didn’t surprise him in the least.

“Well,” Teemu said, startling Olli out of his self-revelation with a clap of his hands. Vaguely Olli remembered Teemu getting pulled aside by the media to explain their loss, but now here he stood at the center of the room, still in all his gear and dripping with sweat. “We have an afternoon to be sad and drink _very moderately_ —” Olli found himself being eyeballed, and he flushed deeply. “—and tomorrow we earn our bronze medal.”

\--

After he’d showered, Olli promised to meet up with the others in the canteen, and then he biked across the plaza to the practice rink, looking for Sid. Instead he found Kuni lounging in the hall a dozen meters from a cluster of media, which Sid was undoubtedly in the middle of. When Kuni spotted Olli, he peeled away from the wall and took Olli by the elbow. “He’ll be along soon,” Kuni said, walking them away from the cluster—protecting Sid, still. Always.

Olli hadn’t been alone with Kuni since the bond and had never spent much time with him even before. “We lost,” he blurted. 

Kuni’s expression softened a little. “Yeah. I heard.”

Olli didn’t have anything to follow that up with. He didn’t want to talk to Kuni about the possibility of Canada and Finland meeting up again in the bronze medal game. He didn’t want Kuni to ask about Olli’s freakout after the last time, either. Surely Kuni knew the basics. Sid had missed practice the next morning, after all.

So they stood there, a long walk down the hall and around the corner from where Sid was holding court, Kuni keeping an eye out and Olli trying to drag his thoughts away from the game he’d just lost. “Did you hear about Marty?” Olli asked. “His hand?”

Kuni blinked at him a moment before the light dawned. “Oh. Our Marty. Yeah, I heard. Figures, right? This fucking season.”

“Yeah,” Olli said. Yeah, it figured. 

The prospect loomed again of another several months with Sid. Olli tried to glimpse the outline of his life, if he and Sid didn’t break the bond until the summer. They’d still sleep in the same bed and drive to the rink together. Things would get almost normal on the bench, and Sid probably wouldn’t get in any more fights on Olli’s behalf, flushed and sweaty and fit to murder someone, and Olli—

Olli definitely would not think about other times he’d seen Sid flushed and sweaty recently.

Olli grunted at himself in disgust, which caught Kuni’s attention. Olli turned resolutely away from Kuni and untoward thoughts, and tried to think of something else. 

The game? Okay, no, he didn’t want to think about that either.

God, he was hungry. He’d eaten a protein bar after his shower, but it was long gone now. His stomach growled, and he shifted his weight, as though that would bring Sid faster. 

Unexpectedly, it did. The next moment, Sid stepped around the corner. “Olli.”

“Hey,” Olli said. 

“I’m sorry.” Sid came in close and pressed his shoulder to Olli’s. 

The sympathy was almost more than Olli could take. He took a deep breath to try and get himself under control. “There’s still bronze.”

“Mm,” Sid said diplomatically. They both knew how much comfort _Sid_ would have taken in still being able to compete for bronze. “How’s your head?”

Olli blinked, startled, and then he took a moment to assess. His neck was a little sore from a heavy check Berglund had thrown, but that was all. There was none of the near-migraine queasiness of a strained bond. “It’s fine. I’m hungry. Can we go eat something? Do you have time?”

Sid checked his watch. “Yeah, I’ve got time.”

Olli found sandwiches in the cafeteria, and Sid sat with him, keeping his knee and shoulder pressed to Olli’s and stealing the occasional fry from Olli’s plate. Afterward they hid away in the trainer’s room off Canada’s dressing room and spent ten stolen minutes getting as deep into each other’s space as possible, taking their last breaths of each other for a few hours. Olli shoved his nose against Sid’s neck and inhaled lungfuls of his scent, long and slow.

The alarm on Sid’s watch beeped, and Olli reluctantly pulled away. “Good luck,” he said.

“Thanks,” Sid said.

“You have to win, okay?” Olli said. “All of this—what’s the point if one of us doesn’t win it?”

“Shit, Olli,” Sid said. He looked a little shaken. “Way to put the pressure on.”

“You can handle it,” Olli said. He didn’t say, _If you lose we have to play against each other again._

Sid squeezed Olli’s arm and nodded solemnly. “Okay, so.”

“Light it up,” Olli said, swatting Sid on the ass. It startled a laugh out of Sid, and he left the room smiling. Olli felt a little lighter, too—this game, he had absolutely no mixed feelings about. Team Canada or bust. He texted Sami to find out where he was. In the Finland dorms with Sasha and Mikael, it turned out, watching speed skating. 

When Olli arrived, Sami shoved over to give Olli room to sit. During a break, he asked Olli softly, “Things good?”

On Olli’s other side, Mikael Granlund and Sasha were arguing about the streamlining properties of Spandex and paying no attention. Olli shrugged. “Bronze game tomorrow,” as though that were an answer.

“Fuck yeah,” Sami said with fervor. He sank a little deeper into the couch and sprawled his legs out in front of him. “But I mean, with you.” He toed at Olli’s instep. “And Crosby, I guess.” He made a face. 

“Sid’s not bad. He’s been really—nice.” The word felt inadequate. 

“How did it happen?” Sami asked, casually, while sneaking Olli a less-than-casual glance. “Like, you guys were heat friends and it got out of hand?” 

“ _No_ ,” Olli said, horrified. “No, we never—it was an emergency.”

“An emergency where you just had to fuck him until you guys bonded? Like in the pornos?”

“Shut up.” Olli’s face burned.

Sami sat up a little. “Wait, really?”

“It was awful, and I don’t want to talk about it.” Or think about it, either, he told himself firmly.

“Fuck,” Sami said. 

“We’re going to break it. We’re waiting until after the Olympics.” 

Sami seemed convinced. He slapped Olli’s knee. “Good plan. I appreciate it. Otherwise who the hell knows who they’d have stuck me with for a D partner.”

\--

That night, as game time approached, Team Finland took over the large TV in the dorm’s lounge and arranged the couches to suit. Sami squished Olli into the corner of one. Olli’s teammates settled all around him in couches and on the floor and, in Tuukka’s case, a folding chair. Tuukka looked pale, and he scowled at everything. No one tried to talk to him.

Sami stage whispered into Olli’s ear, “Are we rooting for Canada?”

“You can root for whoever you want,” Olli said.

“But you’re rooting for Canada,” Sami said, abandoning the whisper.

“You want to play them for bronze?” Olli demanded, his stomach tightening a little at the thought. 

“They probably wouldn’t even come. They’d be too ashamed. We could just score empty netters all night.”

Olli huffed and sprawled his legs a little wider. If Canada struck early and hard, maybe he wouldn’t spend the entire game with his stomach in knots. He could find Sid afterwards and congratulate him, admire that triumphant gleam in his eye. He could get right into Sid’s space and _smell_ his happiness, and then—

 _And then_ was not a place Olli’s mind was going to go. 

Canada did not strike early. The first period was a goaltending clinic, with eleven saves for Price, sixteen for Quick. A penalty on each side. No goals. It took Canada a minute and a half into the second period to score, and then, finally, Olli felt like he could breathe again—shallow breathes, heart always in his throat.

Price held on somehow. Canada won that way, one goal to none. When the final horn sounded, Olli sank slowly into the couch, stiff and tension-sore. “Fuck,” he said to no one, and no one replied, although Sami shot him a knowing look.

Olli was hungry again, of course. He went to the cafeteria with the team, followed them back to the dormitories, and then let himself into his and Sid’s room and waited. It was well past midnight when the door finally swung open. Sid stumped in, hair still damp from the shower. He caught sight of Olli on the bed and grinned, glowing with self-satisfaction.

Olli set his phone aside. “Good job.”

“Thanks.” Sid was trying really hard to dial it back, and it really wasn’t working. 

Olli wanted to do so many things to him. He wanted to let Sid do things, too. He wanted—fuck. He closed his eyes and took a careful breath. The room still smelled faintly of paint, and he focused on that. Finally he opened his eyes again to find Sid peering intently. Olli said, “You better have softened up USA for us.”

Sid shrugged, lopsided. “Did my best.”

Olli couldn’t look at Sid anymore. He looked down at the brilliantly colored quilt, and suddenly he could barely stay upright. The relief of Canada’s win collapsed on him like a weight. “Bed?”

“Yeah, I just gotta—” Sid gestured towards the bathroom. He went away. The sink ran. Olli shucked off his socks and t-shirt and slid under the covers, eyes closed, thinking about avocadoes. He hated avocadoes. They were slimy and a shade of green that food should never be, and he definitely, absolutely did not want to have sex with them.

Sid climbed in behind him and turned off the light. “Did you see the time tomorrow? You’re playing at seven.”

Olli hadn’t seen. “That’s soon.”

Sid shifted in close, his body a long, warm line of heat against Olli’s back and behind his calves. Something in Olli, deeper and much less frenzied than sex, relaxed. He sucked in air, exhaled, and felt a piece of himself he hadn’t even realized was missing settle back in place. “You’ll be fine,” Sid said.

It wasn’t until Olli was already going under that he realized Sid had been talking about hockey.

\--

Olli woke first. Light and voices and a gentle salt breeze came in through the window. He lay there, Sid snoring lightly against the back of his neck, and he decided: today, he would win an Olympic medal.

Finland’s practice was just a brief skate and a long session watching tape. USA’s power play, their breakout, Quick’s tendencies. Then they all went around the room and offered what insight they could on USA’s players. Jussi and Olli talked a little about Brooksie.

“And definitely no Martin?” someone asked.

“No Martin,” Coach Westerlund confirmed.

The bottom dropped right out of Olli’s nerves. For a couple of hours there, he’d forgotten. And he would have to forget again, because today he didn’t play for the Penguins; he didn’t care about their welfare. He played for Finland.

Sid was busy doing the same kinds of things with Team Canada: video, a full-length practice to help prepare them for Sweden the next night. He found time to meet Olli back at their room for a nap, and for those two hours, neither hockey there nor hockey in Pittsburgh could touch Olli. “We’re going to do it,” Olli told Sid at the door, as they prepared to walk out into the world again. “We’re going to win bronze.”

“Yeah, you are,” Sid said.

That buoyant confidence carried Olli through the scoreless first period and USA’s penalty shot. Teemu’s goal in the opening minutes of the second felt inevitable; so did Jussi’s goal that followed. They weathered a second penalty shot unharmed. They scored again and again—a second for Teemu, and could there be anything more right than that, in this, his last Olympic game—and then Olli put one in himself in the game’s dying minutes, a final slam of the door.

They won, five to zero. 

They won.

Olli walked the handshake line like he was skating on air. There was champagne in the locker room, and maybe bronze didn’t quite deserve champagne, but fuck it, there was a metal medallion hanging from Olli’s neck, and he’d won it playing in the Olympics.

The team all gulped at fizzing champagne and babbled to reporters when required and showered when the champagne stickiness and post-game sweat made it unavoidable. Suddenly Sami, lathered and half rinsed, shoved at Olli’s shoulder. “Fuck yeah!”

“Fuck yeah!” Olli replied, shoving back, matching Sami’s manic grin.

“You’ve got a fucking medal,” Tuukka called from two shower heads over.

“In the fucking Olympics,” Sami said.

They fucking did it.

Showered and dressed, they made their way back to the dorms. The staff at the doors cheered as the team walked in. In the lounge there was more champagne, tingly stuff that made Olli laugh until he coughed. There was delicious sahti, too, that they poured down each other’s throats. The medal knocked heavy and solid and certain against Olli’s chest, and sometimes he set a drink down just to warm the bronze in his hands. During one of those pauses, he remembered to text Sid: **at finland dorms, late night probably. you okay?**

Awhile later, Jussi found Olli. “Olli,” he said, soft and serious. 

“Yeah,” Olli said, trying to sit up from the couch he’d been sprawling. Next to him, Sami giggled uncontrollably. “What’s up?”

“Sid’s looking for you.”

“I didn’t forget,” Olli said, bewildered. “I texted him!”

“That’s probably why he came here.”

Olli pushed himself up off the sofa. Did he have a headache? He couldn’t tell if he had a headache. He got to the lounge doorway, and there was Sid standing just to the other side, peering into the chaos. “Sid,” Olli said.

“Hey, Mr. Olympic Medalist.”

For just a moment, the reality knocked Olli a little sideways again. He pressed his fingers to that weight hanging from his neck. “Yeah,” he said, grinning because he couldn’t help it. Then he remembered. “Are you okay? Did you text me? I didn’t see it, sorry.”

“No, no. I thought I could stop by for a top-up? And then I should turn in, but you don’t need to hurry.”

Olli pressed his shoulder to Sid’s. He was too far gone to sort out how Sid made him feel from how everything else made him feel—the medal and the booze his brain was swimming in. He didn’t want to give up any of it. “You could hang out with us.”

Sid shook his head, smiling. “I’m too sober for this party, I think.”

“You could—”

“And I have to stay that way,” Sid said, cutting Olli off at the pass. “I have a game tomorrow,” he added, too gently, which made Olli remember what game it was that Sid would be playing. Before he could feel anything about that, Sid said, “Come on, is there somewhere quiet we can go?”

Olli tried to pull himself together enough to remember the layout. He could get someone’s room key if he needed, but it’d mean wading back into the celebration behind him and interrupting someone. “The bathroom?” he said.

They found a single-toilet bathroom with a locking door. The bathroom fan hummed noisily. Sid pressed into Olli, and buried his face in Olli’s neck. He took a deep breath, then another. After a moment it came to Olli that Sid was maybe feeling the bond a little more than he’d said. Olli cautiously skated his hand up Sid’s back and closed it around the nape of his neck. “Gold tomorrow,” he said, to say something.

Sid huffed softly. “You think so, huh.”

“I know.”

Sid pulled back, clear-eyed, searching. “Because it’ll make all this worth it?” He rolled his gaze around the taupe confines of the bathroom and back to Olli again.

The sharp tang of cleaner was clearing Olli’s head a little. Now he felt a bit of that headache coming on. But he had a medal at his chest and a victory party to get back to, and he had no regrets. “It’s already worth it. To me.” 

“Good.” Sid closed in again, pressing his body heat and his solid certainty into Olli. “Good.”

Sid excused himself after a few more minutes. “I’ll see you at the room?”

“You’ll be asleep,” Olli pointed out.

“So you’ll see me at the room,” Sid said, grinning and unapologetic. He walked down the hall and out of Finland’s dorms like he owned them, like the entire Olympics complex was his oyster. Tonight, Olli knew how that felt.

“All good?” Sami asked, when Olli squeezed in next to him again.

As if anything could be bad tonight. For these few hours, Olli couldn’t even begrudge Sid his gold medal game. “All good.”

\--

Olli woke the next morning when Sid got out of bed. Sid’s footsteps receded to the bathroom, and the door shut with a soft _snick_ of the latch. Olli lay for a while, assessing. Remembering. Last night he’d headed off the threatening hangover with water; now he felt dry-mouthed, a tenderness behind his eyeballs, but nothing he couldn’t live with.

The bathroom door opened. After a few moments the bed shifted again under Sid’s weight. Olli pushed upright and blinked at him. “Practice?”

Sid was already dressed all the way to his baseball cap and his watch. The contents of his wallet were strewn across the bright blue quilted comforter, and now he was collecting them together again. He shrugged. “Just tape and a skate. You know. Can’t get worn out now.” When he slapped the wallet closed, only a tidy stack of receipts remained.

“I’ll see you at lunch?”

“Yeah, I’ll text you when I’m free.” Sid hesitated, and then he leaned over to give Olli’s bare shoulder a squeeze. “Congratulations.”

In the sober morning light, the word seemed different. Heavier. So did Sid’s hand on Olli’s skin, never mind that Olli’s back had been pressed to Sid’s chest half an hour ago. “Thanks,” Olli said.

Sid gave him one more brief look, and then he pushed to his feet. He jammed his wallet into his pocket. “Later.”

“Later,” Olli echoed.

He took his time showering and dressing. In the last week and change his single suitcase of belongings had somehow spread across most available surfaces and even engulfed a few of Sid’s carefully sorted piles. Olli went on a fruitless search for clean socks until he finally gave up and took a pair of Sid’s.

In the morning light, standing in a stark, bare room Olli was suddenly and thoroughly sick of, last night’s game and everything after it felt like a dream. He kept reminding himself: he’d won a medal. He got it out of his luggage and held it again, tracing the linked rings on one side and the words _Men’s Ice Hockey_ on the other. 

He texted Sami— **going to breakfast, you up yet??** —and he headed to the canteen. He walked through an Olympic complex growing emptier by the day, as more and more events awarded their medals and the athletes headed home. The sky was concrete gray, and a chill blew in off the water. 

He spotted Teemu and Salo when he got in the door, and once he’d gotten a serving of the day’s special, he made his way to their table. Tuukka was there, too, but his cap was pulled low over his eyes and he was glowering from what Olli judged was probably a headache. “After today, you’ll never need to eat brown stew again,” Salo said, surveying Olli’s bowl.

“Ah, but he’ll miss it,” Teemu said solemnly.

“I don’t think so,” Olli said. He stuck a spoonful in his mouth. It definitely was brown, a little salty, with a general suggestion of meat and one or more indeterminate vegetables. It was solid food, though, and warm. 

Teemu and Salo fell back into talking about the reffing twelve years prior in an Olympic game that Olli just barely remembered. It’d happened in the middle of the night in Finland, and his mom hadn’t let Olli get up for it. He’d watched it on video tape the next day. Had he dreamed then that someday he’d be here, listening to stars of that game reminisce?

“Ready to go home?” Tuukka asked, interrupting Olli’s thoughts. He was still scowling, but in an impersonal way. Both hands were wrapped around a foam coffee cup.

“Yeah,” Olli said, struck with the truth of it. “Yeah, I want to go home. But not for a couple of days yet.” He and Coach Westerlund had had that conversation last night, when Olli’d still been mostly sober. “You know. Because I have to fly home with Sid.”

“Right.”

It was too early in the morning for Olli to try and read Tuukka’s tone. He ate another spoonful of stew.

“You’re ready to be done with that, too? Your temporary bond?”

Olli chewed slowly. Swallowed. Tuukka was a good teammate, a great goaltender, but they weren’t really friends. “I guess.” Tuukka nodded neutrally, and Olli remembered the alpha woman he’d seen Tuukka with, dark haired and dark eyed. “You have a bondmate here, too, right?”

The corner of Tuukka’s mouth curled up. “Yeah. Jasmiina. But we’ve been together for a couple of years, so it’s not like with you and Sid.”

“Right.” Not many bonds were like his and Sid’s, outside of over-the-top dramas. Or, as Sami had suggested, in the pornos. Still, here was Tuukka, with more experience than Olli had, anyway. Less than Salo, but Salo was almost as old as Olli’s mom. “How did you guys get together?”

The remains of Tuukka’s scowl eased into something like fondness. “I met her through a friend. She’s from Tampere. We just hit it off, you know?”

Olli didn’t really. Amanda in London had been fun, but that was all. It never crossed Olli’s mind that they might bond one day. It had never crossed his mind that he and Sid would bond one day, either. “Sure.”

Tuukka snorted, like he knew what a lie that was. 

It would’ve been easy for Olli to let it go, finish his stew, see the guys off on their airport shuttle later. Find Sid before his game and scent him for a while. But Teemu and Salo were still arguing over a missed slash that broke someone’s tooth, and somehow Olli dared to drop his voice and ask, “Was it hard? When you first bonded?”

Tuukka swallowed his gulp of coffee. “Hard like how? Like the separation pains?”

“No, like. Did you—” Olli hadn’t even known he wanted to ask this, and now suddenly he couldn’t hold it back. “Did you want to have sex with her all the time?”

Tuukka’s eyebrows rose. He was clearly trying to keep a straight face. After a moment he managed to say, “Well, something was hard, for sure.”

“Screw you.”

“Yep,” Tuukka said, supremely smug. “But, Olli, that’s like—that’s part of the point, you know?”

“Right. Sure.”

Completely grave now, Tuukka said, “You’re saying you and Sid aren’t—”

“It’s not like that,” Olli interrupted. “We’re not like that.”

Tuukka took another slurping sip of coffee. “I don’t think it works that way, kid.”

Olli couldn’t even find it in him to object. He did feel like a kid. He felt young and dumb, and that wasn’t Tuukka’s fault or Sid’s or anyone’s. “I don’t know if we’re breaking the bond yet.”

A pause. “Oh yeah?”

“We’ve had a lot of injuries on the Pens. I don’t know if they can afford to lose me. Or Sid.”

“Is someone in the organization asking you to stay bonded?” Tuukka asked. His calm sounded razor-thin. 

“No, but I can’t—I don’t want to let down the team. It’s not like this is fucking with my play. We can fix it in the off season.”

“But in the meantime you want to jump his bones, and you can’t, because you two _aren’t like that_.”

Olli stared at his stew. “Yeah. Basically.”

Tuukka was silent for a while, and finally Olli dared to look up. Tuukka’s gaze felt sober, measuring, like how he’d look at an equal and not a kid. “That’s rough,” Tuukka said.

“Yeah.”

“Hey, be careful with Sid, okay?”

“Careful,” Olli repeated. “With _Sid_?”

Tuukka wrinkled his nose. “I’m not talking about on the ice. I just mean, being O in the NHL kind of sucks. Americans are so fucking weird about some of this stuff. And Canadians,” he added, before Olli could protest. “And it’s easier to hurt someone, when you’re bonded. It’s easier for them to hurt you.”

Sami wandered in then, Sasha in tow, and more of the team right behind them. Olli scraped the last of the brown stew from his plate. He went for coffee, for something to do with his hands. He sipped it so slowly that it cooled before he was done, and he let the familiar, wonderful language of home roll over him. Soon there would be only Jussi to speak Finnish with.

He followed Sami back to Sami’s room afterwards, sat on Sami’s bed, and watched him pack. Sami was still feeling the effects of the night before and didn’t have much to say, and Olli had nothing to fill in the gap. Finally Sami stowed the last stray sock into his suitcase and zipped it up a final time. He checked his phone. “Almost time to go.”

“I’ll walk you,” Olli said. 

The cloud layer was higher and the sky somehow more desolate than it’d been two hours earlier. Olli and Sami approached the shuttle stop. A hundred or more athletes milled in loose groups around it, including Team Finland, half of them wearing toques in white and Finnish blue. “So this is it,” Sami said, facing Olli. “It’s been fun, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Olli said, smiling for the first time in a while. He’d won a medal. At the _Olympics_.

“You’re playing us in Anaheim in a couple of weeks, right? So I’ll see you then.” Sami knuckled Olli in the shoulder, and Olli shoved back. A couple of weeks, yeah. He could do that.

Teemu spotted them and came over to enfold Olli in a hug. “We couldn’t have done it without you,” he said, smiling warmly. Olli felt a little like crying. Then Salo came over, too, and Tuukka ruffled Olli’s hair, and soon it felt like all of Team Finland was seeing him off, instead of the other way around. 

The shuttle came, and team began to file onto it. The last to save goodbye was Jussi; he gave Olli a nod. “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“Right,” Olli said, that urge to cry building behind his eyelids. Probably he needed to hydrate and maybe also go back to bed for a couple more hours.

Jussi leaned in close. “We did good,” he said, like a secret. Olli watched him get on the shuttle, that conviction firm in his chest. They had. They’d done good. The shuttle rolled out, and Olli watched until it turned the corner and disappeared. Then he went to go find Sid.

\--

They ate with Team Canada. The Canadians were all more than loud enough to make up for Olli, all high on possibility and the work stretching out before them in just a few hours: beat Sweden. Win gold.

Sid finished eating the first of any of them and eyed the remains of Olli’s sandwich significantly. Olli hurried. As soon as he was done Sid rose and Olli followed him to a back hallway that was temporarily empty. Sid turned abruptly and stepped into Olli’s space, too far away for a real scenting but near enough to make Olli go a little cross-eyed. “I’m gonna do this, okay?” Sid said. “I’m going to make this fucking worth it.”

Olli blinked at him. “I told you, it’s already worth it for me. If that’s what you mean.” 

Sid exhaled shakily. “I’m just really fucking sorry this all happened to you.”

“I’m… sorry this happened to you, too?”

“Yeah.” Sid looked up into Olli’s eyes until Olli’s eyes started to water. Olli blinked, and Sid closed to the distance and put his arms around Olli, and that now-familiar comfort began to flood all through him. He squeezed back and hoped that was enough to return the favor. 

Finally, as Sid’s hold on him began to relax, Olli said, “Now go win it.”

Sid stepped back, grin suddenly new and undimmed. “Yeah, okay. If you think that’s what I should do.”

“That’s what you should do.”

\--

It was a long two hours until puck drop. Olli spent them with his parents at their hotel. They told him all about every message they’d gotten from every relative back in Finland who’d watched him win bronze. They didn’t ask him any more about Sid, but when it got close to game time, his mom suggested they move up to their room without any prompting.

Toews scored in the first, sneaking the puck in behind Lundqvist off a set play. The game went to intermission 1-0 Canada. In the second, Sid took off on a breakaway with a stolen puck. Olli sat sharply upright, breath caught as Sid sped up the ice, all of Sweden in pursuit. Sid’s goal felt inevitable, like this game had felt inevitable for a week. Sid drew Lundqvist out and slid the puck past Lundqvist’s toe. Olli’s pulse pounded in his chest. “His first of the Olympics,” Olli said to no one in particular. 

Kuni scored in the third on a mini-breakaway of his own. Sweden never scored at all. “Well, that’s it, then,” Olli’s father said when the horn sounded. He squeezed Olli’s shoulder.

“Yeah.” Olli exhaled for what felt like the first time in hours. He closed his eyes and let himself succumb to gravity and the beginning of a headache—maybe a Sid one, or maybe just from long days, too much excitement, and too little sleep. 

“So you both have your medals now,” his mother prompted. 

“Yep,” Olli agreed. 

“You’re all grown up,” his mother said after a pause. She gave his arm a squeeze, which didn’t make him feel grown up in the slightest. 

That incipient headache was growing. Definitely a Sid headache. Olli heaved a sigh and opened his eyes. “I’m sorry, I have to get moving pretty soon.” He flapped his hand towards his face.

His parents protested, but only feebly. They’d been new-bonded once, too; they knew how it felt. His mother held him tightly, and his eyes started to sting. Pittsburgh was a long, long way from Jyväskylä. “Say hi to everyone for me,” he said. “Send me salmiakki.”

“Big professional hockey player like you, you can’t order it yourself?”

“It tastes better when you send it,” he said. That earned him a kiss and another hug, and he would have lingered except the twinge of pain behind his eye began to feel more like a spike. Olli gave his father a last hug, let the hotel room door shut behind him, and took the three flights of stairs to the ground floor.

The bikes were packed and gone now, so Olli returned to the dorms on foot under a night sky made bright by the city lights reflecting against the cloud layer. He stepped through the massive open gate and into the Olympic complex and realized it would be the last time. When he left next, it’d be on an airport shuttle.

Within view of Bolshoy Arena, Olli stepped out of the foot traffic and texted Sid: **where are u? I need you for a minute sorry** More like ten. Ten minutes would ease enough of the tension in Olli’s skull and other places that he’d be able to sleep.

Was there any point in going to the dorm when Sid almost surely wouldn’t be there yet? Olli angled towards the cafeteria instead. The path took him around the Bolshoy through the crowds still trickling out of it, jubilant in red or downcast in blue and brilliant yellow. A beta couple with maple leaves on their toques stopped him and asked for an autograph—on their Canada-Sweden program, because that was all the paper they had on them. “That’s neat that Finland got to stay for the gold medal game,” the taller woman commented.

Olli paused, ballpoint pen in hand. “Uh. Well, we couldn’t miss the ending, right?”

Less than a dozen people sat in the cafeteria at the village—the last strays not yet gone home. Olli didn’t recognize any of them. He passed up one last serving of brown stew in favor of a sandwich. Just as he took a seat at an empty table near a window, his phone beeped with a text from Sid: **I’ll meet you, just tell me where.**

Sid strode in eight minutes later, freshly showered and flushed with victory. Fuck, he looked good, in a way that sunk deep into the pit of Olli’s stomach. He glowed. Olli pushed to his feet without thinking, and he hugged Sid fiercely, congratulations and need all tangled together. “You did it,” Olli breathed. “I told you.”

Sid hugged back. “You told me.”

Olli squeezed tighter, nose pressed to Sid’s neck in what any A or O would recognize for scenting, but it wasn’t like Olli and Sid were any kind of secret anymore, and there was hardly anyone left to even stare. Victory smelled good on Sid, a warm musky happiness that Olli couldn’t help but respond to. His bonded was happy, and right now, that was all Olli needed to be happy, too.

Until his neck started to ache, anyway. Reluctantly Olli let go of Sid and took a step back. “Do you have to be somewhere?”

“I should probably get back to the party eventually. Keep Kuni in line. You know.”

“You never know what Kuni might get up to,” Olli agreed gravely, just to see Sid crack that full-of-shit smile. 

“But I’ve got a few minutes. Come on, finish your sandwich.” Sid took the seat next to Olli’s, and Olli sat down again and pressed his knee to Sid’s.

Gathering up the scattered remains of his meal, Olli said, “So, tell me about the game.” Sid’s face lit up. 

That kept them occupied all through the end of the first sandwich and the second one Olli eventually went and got. Olli ventured a comment now and then—Sid missing the net in the first, Price robbing one of the Swedes in the third—but it was hardly necessary. Sid kept going just fine all on his own. Finally Sid looked at his watch. “Shit. I should probably meet back up with the guys. If you wanted, you could…?”

Olli shook his head. His uncomplicated happiness for Sid didn’t extend to Sid’s twenty-odd teammates. “It’s fine. I want to sleep anyway.”

“Cool.” Sid pushed to his feet.

“Sid?”

“Yeah.”

Olli braced himself. “You know we have to talk. About—about the bond. And about Marty.”

“I know,” Sid said quietly. It deflated Olli a little. “But later. When we get back.”

“When we get back.”

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Paul Martin usually gets referred to as Paulie in this fandom, but a lot of guys refer to him as Marty in interviews and such, so that's what I've used in this fic. And then I spent a lot of time angsting about whether people would think I was talking about Marty St. Louis. /o\


	5. Chapter 5

Their return transatlantic flight seated Kuni somewhere else, and there was no one to comment if Sid and Olli spent the entire flight with their shoulders pressed together. Olli slept on Sid for a while, and later Sid returned the favor. Olli repressed the urge to stroke Sid’s hair, tickling his neck. He didn’t remember touching it during Sid’s heat, and now it’d be weird. They weren’t like that.

Olli curled his hands in his lap and closed his eyes.

It was going on ten at night when they walked down the jetway at Pittsburgh International, and it felt like morning, like Olli had pulled an all-nighter and now the sun should come up. The parched, recycled airplane air and the long hours of sitting in place had given him a completely mundane headache. He fell asleep on the drive home—the drive to Sid’s, although realistically it was far more homey than Olli’s hotel suite.

Olli didn’t brush his teeth. He showered the worst of the travel grime off and collapsed into bed—big enough for two with room to spare, a newfound luxury. He was barely aware of Sid crawling in and fitting himself behind Olli, one hand curled over Olli’s hip.

\--

Olli woke to the smell of something delicious. Dragging himself out of bed and downstairs, he found Sid serving some kind of egg scramble onto a plate. “Hey, how you feel?” Sid asked.

“Dead,” Olli said. He claimed a plate and took it to the table.

“Fortunately for you, we’re off the hook for practice today.”

“We are?” Olli said around a mouthful of egg. Fuck, he was hungry. How long had he been asleep?

“Kuni, too. So I figured we should get groceries, run errands, get a workout—”

“Sleep?”

Sid laughed, as if he didn’t have circles under his eyes, too. Fuck time zones, Olli thought, and stabbed at his eggs.

They did all those things, though. They stocked up on ingredients Sid hadn’t thought to order through his grocery service. They went down into the basement to Sid’s home gym to work up a sweat and get some of the travel creaks worked out of their joints. Finally, mid-afternoon, Sid yawned for about the fifteenth time and sheepishly agreed that a nap might be a plan. 

After they’d both dragged themselves out of bed again, Sid seasoned the salmon for dinner, and Olli made the rice. He didn’t burn it to the bottom this time. “Nice,” Sid said approvingly, peering into the pot. “Next thing you know, Meat and Potatoes will make you their full-time chef.”

“I don’t know if Meat and Potatoes has a chef.”

Sid shrugged, not even remotely bothered by this potential flaw in his plan.

“I never had much chance to cook before,” Olli said slowly. “Or—I didn’t need to know. But if I keep living with you, probably I’ll learn more, right?”

That good humor in Sid’s eyes leaked away. “Olli—”

“Do you want to break the bond?” Olli searched Sid’s face for some tell-tale hint, but a month of being bonded to Sidney Crosby was not enough to learn how to read him when he didn’t want to be read.

Sid ducked away from Olli’s gaze and turned back to the counter. Methodically he spread the rice in the casserole dish. The salmon went on top, then the sauce from the bottom of the bowl dribbled over everything. Finally the oven door banged shut, and Sid said, “I don’t know if staying bonded is a good idea.”

“You wouldn’t even let me talk about it before.”

“So we talk about it,” Sid said. “We lay it out. Why stay bonded until the season’s over?”

“For hockey,” Olli said promptly.

Sid laughed. “Okay, yeah.”

“Tanger’s still out.” 

“I heard from Shero—Marty definitely has to have surgery on his hand. Tanger’s doing better, but no idea when he’ll play again.”

“So who’s our top pair? Nisky and Brooksie?” Olli shook his head. “And we can’t lose you either. If you tweaked your shoulder or something you wouldn’t take a month off to fix it unless the trainers all took turns sitting on you.”

Sid acknowledged this point with a wry nod. “And why break it now?”

“Because it’s going to be harder if we wait. But it’s going to suck no matter what.” Olli shrugged. “But maybe—maybe it’s harder for you to stay bonded.”

Sid leaned back against the counter, both hands planted. “Harder for me?”

“Because you’re an omega?” Olli offered. “Tuukka said—”

“What did Tuukka say?” Sid asked casually, but Olli knew him well enough by now to know that it was a front.

“He said it sucked being an O in the NHL.”

Sid relaxed a fraction. “Well, he’s not wrong.”

“I know you hate this,” Olli said softly. “I know you didn’t want it. I don’t want you to keep the bond just because I want to.” 

“I’m not—Olli, it’s not like waking up next to you every day is some awful thing for me, okay. I’m not thrilled about how it happened, but I told you, you’re not so bad.” Humor quirked his mouth, just enough to let Olli know he was teasing. “It’s just—you’re a rookie. You’re fucking nineteen years old. You should not have to deal with my shit.”

“Your shit?” Olli said, blinking.

“Whatever,” Sid said, shrugging Olli’s question away. “I’m just saying, I’m supposed to take care of the guys on my team, and keeping you in this fucking sham is not taking care of you.”

Olli crossed his arms and straightened up, as tall as he could with his heels still on the floor, and he looked down at Sid. He generally forgot that he was taller; Sid had that effect. But now Olli reached for every extra millimeter, and he said, “We’re partners now, right? Temporary partners,” he added, when Sid started to protest. “We’re in this together.”

“Olli—” Sid looked away from Olli and heaved a sigh. “I just want you to be okay.”

“I want you to be okay, too.”

Sid shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“But I do,” Olli said. Sid scoffed. “No, that day in Sochi when I forgot my phone, and I came back and you were sick—that was scary.”

Sid’s eyes had softened. “Olli.”

“And don’t tell me that you want to break the bond so I’m not worried about you anymore, because that’s just the same fucking thing again. If you want to break the bond and sit out a month or—or as long as it takes, okay. If that’s what _you_ want. Not what you want for me.”

Sid slumped back against the counter. “You’re nineteen. You told me you didn’t even know how to work the coin laundry in your hotel.”

Olli swallowed back the first thing he wanted to say. Then the second. He hadn’t told Sid that story over suspect Russian cafeteria stew for Sid to turn around and use it as ammunition. “Yeah. I didn’t. So I called someone who did, and now I know how. Because I asked for help, like a fucking adult. So just—just fucking treat me like one, okay? _We_ can’t make a decision about this if _you_ are the only one who counts.”

Sid stared hard at counter on his island. “Partners,” he said experimentally.

“Yeah,” Olli said. “You can pretend I’m Beau or someone.”

Sid laughed out loud. “That is not an improvement.”

“Or Tanger. Whatever. Just—talk to me like an adult. Please.”

Sid looked Olli hard in the eye. Olli looked back, trying to project maturity and the capacity for responsible decision-making. Finally Sid blew out a sigh. “Okay. Okay. I’ll try. Listen, you want a beer?”

“Sure?” 

Sid nodded and pushed off form the counter top. He swung by the fridge for two long-necks and then kept on going, right out of the kitchen. Olli followed him out to the back patio and took the beer when Sid offered it to him. Sid twisted the cap off his own bottle, barehanded, and took a long pull. He braced his elbows on the patio table and said, “I just don’t know if it’s worth it.”

“The Olympics went okay.”

“Eh.” Sid waggled his hand. “That one night when you—you know? That kind of freaked me the fuck out.”

“Hey—” Olli protested.

“No, if we’re doing this like adults, then I get to be freaked out if I want to.”

“That’s—okay. That’s fair.”

“Thanks,” Sid grumbled. “I just don’t want to go through that again.”

“We’ll be playing on the same team,” Olli pointed out. “That feedback loop thing, that won’t happen.”

“Not about me beating you in a game. But what about something else? The woman at the clinic said the bond is stabilizing, so we’re still gonna get that back-and-forth sometimes, probably. And if we don’t, it’ll be because the bond is stable. And that might be worse, right? Because it’ll be that much harder to break later. Fuck.” Sid took another sip of beer and set the bottle none-too-gently onto the glass table. “Fuck.”

That didn’t seem to invite a response. Olli worked on his beer.

“I’m just really sorry, you know?” Sid said. He looked it—he looked miserable, even. It made Olli want to hold him, which was the bond, obviously, and not a helpful impulse. Sid bowed his head over the table. “I just tried so hard for so fucking long to not let it fuck everything up, and then my fucking _suppressants_ fail, and here I am, fucking you over. Shit.” 

Olli was missing something here. “You tried not to let _what_ fuck everything up?”

Sid blinked at him, like he wasn’t sure Olli was serious. Slowly he said, “Being an O. That day in that department store—I just wanted a new cologne, you know? I didn’t even need to be there. I could have been at home.”

 _Alone?_ Olli wanted to ask. He wasn’t sure he liked that idea better, considering Sid couldn’t even hold it together to make a phone call. How long would it have been before someone found him? 

“I didn’t need to get you into this,” Sid said. He looked at his bottle instead of Olli.

“I got me into this. Remember? And you said if it wasn’t me, you’d have gotten bonded to someone else. That alpha I didn’t like.” Olli’s voice dropped into a growl on the last couple of words; he couldn’t help it. In his memory that alpha was slimy, ungentle, on the edge of violence, and the very thought of him being with Sid made Olli’s gut clench. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t choose this. You didn’t have any control over what happened.”

“You think that makes me feel _better_? Fuck.” Sid slammed his beer on the table, shoved to his feet, and stalked back into the house.

Olli watched him go. Absently taking another sip, he let himself really remember that afternoon in the quiet room, as much as he was able. He remembered how warm he’d been as soon as he walked in the door, even though he wasn’t the one in heat; the way his stomach had turned when he saw who it was, and how that feeling faded to nothing as soon as the lure of Sid’s heat hit his nose. Sid, who was barely able to piece together a sentence.

Olli took his bottle and Sid’s into the house. He set them both gently on the counter, and he paused, listening. He took a sniff, but his stomach was churning too much for him to focus on anything his nose might tell him. Instead he took an educated guess and followed the stairs to the basement. Light limned the bottom of the gym’s closed door. 

Sid was crouched at the far corner of the room, loading weights on a bar. He didn’t look up as Olli crossed the room and came to stand next to the mat. Olli said, “If you want to break it, we can break it. It’s okay.”

Sid blew a long breath through his nose. Finally he straightened up. Searching Olli’s eyes, he said, “What I want is to play fucking hockey.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Sid nodded once, firmly, and then he walked over to the corner and began adjusting the weights on the lat pull. Sid sat on the bench and pulled the bar down for his first rep, and it was clear he had no more to say. Painfully clear, even. 

Olli went upstairs and made a list of what he’d need to do to move out of the hotel.

\--

The next day, Olli and Sid drove in for the first full team practice since the beginning of the Olympic break. Arriving early, they went to Shero’s office together to give him the news. He sent them on to the trainers—for whatever good that did, because what were a couple of betas going to have to say about a bond, really? Finally Shero said that if Dr. Vyas okayed them keeping the bond for the rest of the season, then Shero would say no more about it.

Sid and Olli were late to change by then. They were the last players on the ice—familiar Southpointe ice, practically home. “You guys have medals, you think you can just show up late?” Flower demanded.

“Hey, I have a medal,” Kuni said. Flower swiped at him with his paddle. 

After practice, as the guys began stripping down, Sid quietly called for their attention. “I’ve got an announcement, I guess,” he said. After a few seconds of shuffling, the guys all quieted down to listen. “Yeah, so, Olli and I decided we can’t afford to take a month off right now. We’ve got too many injuries on D, and our forward depth isn’t great either. So we’re keeping our bond until after the playoffs and breaking it then.” Nealer raised his hand, like a kid in school, and Sid added, “And if people didn’t give us a ton of shit about it, that’d be great.” 

Grumbling, Nealer lowered his hand again. Across the room, Kuni was clearly unhappy and bracing for a fight. Olli was really glad he got to sit that one out. He booked it to the showers as fast as he was able.

Montreal came to town the next night. Olli braced himself for any residual weird feelings about Sid from the Finland-Canada game, but sitting down the bench from him, hopping onto the ice with him after an offside, it felt like they’d never been apart. Olli scored a power play goal off a slapper in the second period. “Did you see?” he asked Sid, as soon as he got back on the bench. 

“It was a beauty,” Sid said, laughing at Olli. Olli didn’t mind at all. He wanted to touch Sid, feel the heat of his skin, but that’d be weird; they’d gotten over needing that kind of contact on the bench even before they’d left for Sochi. Instead Olli sat on the bench vibrating inside his own skin, trying not to inch too close.

In the third, Sid put a wrister in, a gorgeous snipe of the kind that Olli might manage once every five seasons or so, if he were lucky. It wasn’t enough to win, though. The Pens put up five goals in regulation, but they allowed five, too, and Budaj stonewalled them in the shootout. It was a sober Penguins team that talked to media about their first game back and then broke to go their separate ways. Sid scowled over the steering wheel the whole way home. 

Olli kept seeing those two goals over and over, one after the other: the weight of Jussi’s pass as it hit Olli’s blade, the wind-up, that moment’s uncertainty when the puck disappeared among all the bodies in front of the net. The red flare of the goal light. Sid taking Geno’s pass on the power play. Sid afterwards, flying the bench, satisfied and so supremely self-assured that it took Olli’s breath away.

“That was teamwork, right?” he said, following Sid in the front door.

“What, losing?” Sid asked. He kicked his shoes off onto the heap by the coat closet. “That was a team effort, all right.”

“No, I mean, our goals. We both scored. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Right?”

Sid huffed. “I’d like to win, too.”

“No,” Olli said. Sid turned finally, puzzled. He was inches away, and surely this close he could _feel_ what Olli meant, could see in his eyes what it had been like, sharing ice. Scoring together. The furrow of puzzlement in Sid’s brow didn’t go away, and Olli wanted to take hold of him until he understood, wanted to grip the back of Sid’s neck and pull him in and _show_ him what teamwork between them was like, and—

Olli stumbled backwards. “Whoa,” Sid said, reaching for him. Then Sid paused, within sniffing range, and puzzlement shifted to something else.

Olli turned and escaped down the hallway, flushed with mortification and _want_ , which he hadn’t even recognized until right this minute. He ended up in the kitchen, and he got a drink of water, because he might as well. He listened for Sid’s footsteps, but they didn’t come. Small relief that was; Olli had to go to bed sometime. 

To delay the inevitable, Olli made himself a sandwich with chicken breast leftover in the fridge. He ate it at the kitchen table. He stared at his phone, but he didn’t turn it on, so there was just the black glare and his own face reflected in it.

“Any of that left?” Sid asked, walking in.

“No,” Olli said. His face burned, and he didn’t look up.

Sid rummaged in the freezer for a while and then put something in the microwave. When it beeped he brought his plate over to the table across from Olli—not touching, which felt like mercy and rejection all at once. Sid didn’t say anything, and Olli kept on staring at the remains of his own sandwich, which he was no longer even a little bit hungry for.

“It’s natural, you know.”

Sid’s voice startled Olli into looking up into Sid’s understanding, captainly face, and then just as quickly Olli ducked his head again. He didn’t open his mouth. Anything he might say would just give him away, if there was anything left to give. Probably he smelled like humiliation now instead of lust. Maybe that was an improvement.

“It’s natural to—to feel that, for your bonded. To want that.”

“I know,” Olli said. It came out like a croak. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be _sorry_. It’s just part of it.”

“We’re not like that,” Olli said. Never had it felt so true as at this moment, while Sid sat understanding and mature and distant under the bright glare of the kitchen lights. 

Olli waited through a long pause, and on the other side of it, Sid said, “It’s okay with me if you pick up, you know.” That startled Olli into staring Sid, meeting his eyes at last. Sid shrugged. “If that helps take the edge off.”

It felt like more rejection, but through the soup of his feelings Olli could recognize that this was just practical: a solution to the logistical problem of Olli being inconveniently horny. Maybe it would even help, getting his rocks off with another person. His private moments in the shower certainly weren’t cutting it. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe I’ll try it.”

Sid sagged a little. “Okay. Good. Um, I’m going to bed, I think.”

After Sid had taken his plate to the sink and left, Olli finished his sandwich. It was slow work; the bites felt hard in his throat, like rocks. Afterwards, he ventured up the stairs. The door to their room was ajar, the light already off. Olli passed it by on his way to the guest bathroom he’d claimed as his. 

He’d showered at the rink, but he took another one now. Under the hot spray he put his soapy hand on his dick and tried to think of—anything, really, anyone but Sid. Amanda from London, first, with her sweet eyes and sweet pussy and long chestnut hair that spilled over the pillow. Arto from World Juniors, with a sharp smile and a natural come-hither fragrance that had every alpha in the tournament wrapped around his finger. Olli worked himself thinking of Arto’s clever stick and his wicked wrist shot, imagining the slow revelation of skin as Arto stripped out of his equipment after a game, soaked in sweat.

Nausea bloomed in Olli’s stomach so suddenly he planted a hand against the wall to keep his balance. He hung his head and breathed carefully, waiting to see if he was going to puke. After a few moments, it seemed not, but the queasiness remained. His hard-on began to wilt. He was still on edge, but need had gotten mixed up with the nausea somehow. He thought he really would puke if he touched himself again.

He rinsed himself off slowly and as chastely as possible and got back into his boxers. In the bedroom, Sid was already asleep. Olli tucked himself in and closed his eyes. If he breathed shallowly, eventually the sick feeling would go away.

He was not, he decided, going to try to pick anyone up.

His stomach did settle eventually, but he was restless with frustrated need even after that, and it took him a long time to fall asleep.

\--

They flew to Chicago the next day. The day after that the Blackhawks royally thrashed them outdoors under stadium lights as snow piled up around the nets in drifts. It should have been really cool, Olli thought, but instead it was just cold. “Welcome to the NHL, eh?” Sid asked, still good-humored despite the thrashing. Maybe it had something to do with the snow. His cheeks were red with cold, and Olli wanted him.

“Yeah,” Olli mumbled, and brushed more half-melted flakes off his jersey.

\--

Olli moved the rest of his stuff to Sid’s: all his game-day suits, his comfy, threadbare sleep boxers and his video games. Most of it ended up in the guest bedroom Sid had designated as Olli’s, strewn everywhere. The mess was worse even than in his hotel suite, because he didn’t have to sleep on the bed. He tried to apologize, but Sid only laughed at him and said it didn’t matter, nobody was using that room for anything else anyway.

They could go all day now without more than passing touches. Olli reported both to his parents on the next Skype visit. They seemed less than wholly reassured.

Tanger started coming around again. The whole room had seemed to brighten when he walked in the first time. He was doing light off-ice workouts now; Olli saw him keeping Marty company on the bikes sometimes.

One day Olli walked into the changing room, post-shower, naked and damp, and felt a prickle. At first he thought it was a chill, but then he caught Sid hurriedly averting his eyes. Olli swallowed hard and turned away. Sid had said it himself: it was natural. It didn’t mean anything.

Even with Sid and Olli, the team’s success was tenuous. They were getting outshot most nights, even when they won. In San Jose, the Sharks doubled them up in shots on goal with a few to spare, and the Pens lost by two. Sid was on the ice for all five goals against. “Do you think—?” Sid began in the dark of their shared hotel room.

Olli waited through the pause. When Sid didn’t continue, Olli pressed close until his nose was flattened against the nape of Sid’s neck. Sid’s anxiety was sharp, acrid, like wet char. “We get another chance tomorrow.”

“You did good, though,” Sid said. He reached awkwardly behind himself to pat Olli’s thigh. “Two goals. That second one was a real beaut.”

“We didn’t win,” Olli mumbled.

“Hey,” Sid said sharply. “It’s a team effort, and you did your part. You did really good.”

Olli inhaled the mild scent of Sid’s shampoo, and he exhaled again, and he tried not to let the words go to his head or any other part of him. “You get another chance tomorrow, too.”

\--

_Tomorrow_ ended on the losing side of a shootout against the Ducks, and fuck this road trip anyway. The Pens flew out directly after, so Olli didn’t even get to hang with Sami; all they managed was a wave across the red line during warm-ups.

\--

They got shut out in Philly and went down the tunnel to a last, mocking cry of “Fle-ury” from the crowd. Olli hadn’t been in Pittsburgh so very long, but he knew enough to understand why Flower looked so tense, why Geno was spitting bitter Russian to himself.

Sid looked no happier, sitting in his stall—the one next to Olli’s, now. None of the beats had remarked upon on that change in Olli’s scenery; Olli wondered what they’d been told. He knocked his knee against Sid’s, just to remind Sid of his presence, but Sid didn’t return the favor. Didn’t even shake his head, just kept flexing his wrist.

It finally occurred to Olli that maybe there was a reason for it. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

“Jammed it,” Sid muttered. “I’ll be fine.”

After media and his shower, Sid disappeared. Olli found him on an examination table in the trainers’ room, a bag of ice bound to his wrist. “Jammed it,” Sid repeated. 

Sid couldn’t take his ice through airport security, and once they were through, there was nowhere to replenish—all the shops were closed. It wasn’t until they were on the plane that he was able to ice it again. He slept with his hand curled carefully in his lap. When they finally, finally reached Sid’s car in Pittsburgh, Olli drove them home. He fetched another ice pack from the freezer and took it up to bed with him, to Sid, who was wincing as he undressed.

“How did you get this shirt _on_?” Olli grumbled, coming to unbutton the cuffs. Sid hissed as Olli bumped against Sid’s tender wrist. Finally, gingerly, Sid removed himself from his shirt, then his undershirt. He stared helplessly down at his pants, and Olli reached for them, too. As his fingers closed around the button, he remembered the other time he’d helped Sid unfasten his pants. He froze, his face furnace-hot, but Sid shifted his weight impatiently. Olli hurried to get Sid’s fly open, though he let Sid step out of the pants himself.

“Sit,” Olli said, and when Sid had sat on the bed, Olli settled next to him. He took a moment to look over Sid’s wrist: swollen and flushed, hot to the touch. Carefully Olli held the ice pack to it. Sid hissed, flinching, before he got hold of himself and held still. “This doesn’t look very good,” Olli said.

“It’s fine. Just needs ice.” 

Sid’s voice had a note of strain that Olli didn’t like at all. He pressed his hip to Sid’s, the best comfort he could offer.

“You should go to bed,” Sid said after a while. 

“I will,” Olli said, and didn’t move. He thumbed across Sid’s arm, above the swollen part. The hairs were soft under the pad of his thumb, and dark. 

Sid inhaled, and something in the room changed. An uncertain prickle crawled down Olli’s spine. “I’m going into heat soon,” Sid said.

“Oh.” The word was a single, shocked puff of air.

“The trainers have been keeping an eye on my levels. They say this week, probably.”

“Oh,” Olli repeated stupidly.

“I can probably get along on my own. I’ve gotten through heats that way before.”

“Probably?” 

Sid’s mouth twisted. “It’s different when you’re bonded. Or so they tell me.” 

Olli inspected the ice pack, then gently lifted it away. Sid’s wrist was all harsh reds and purples; Olli winced at the sight of it. Setting the ice pack on the floor, he said, “It’s probably not a good idea, right? For me to—help.” Not if he wanted it this badly. That was probably a sign.

“I think we left good ideas behind a long time ago. But no, probably not.”

Olli wanted so many things. He wanted to kiss Sid’s mouth and suck marks on his neck. He wanted to feel Sid under his hands and be able to remember it afterwards. He wanted to know what Sid could do to _him_ when they were both lucid. But most of all, “I want you to be okay.”

Sid huffed. “Yeah, it’d suck if I was out with heat complications after all this.”

“ _No_ ,” Olli said. Sid’s eyebrows rose. “I mean yeah, that would suck, but no, that’s not—I just—I want _you_ to be okay. Just—you.” 

Sid searched Olli’s face. The longer he looked, the more Olli was flooded with new embarrassment. Finally Sid leaned in, and Olli sat stock-still as Sid’s lips brushed his cheek, completely chaste. “I really lucked out,” Sid said. “Come on, let’s go to bed. I’m beat.”

\--

In the shower the next morning, Olli gripped himself with soapy fingers and thought about Sid, flushed everywhere and fragrant with heat and _wanting_. Needy for what only Olli could give. Olli didn’t need to think that way very long. He shuddered through his orgasm, and then he rinsed himself off again. He leaned his shoulder into the shower wall and closed his eyes, feeling a hollowness in his chest and an ache in his eyes, like he was going to cry.

He did not cry, but for the first time he could remember, maybe for the first time in his whole life, he hoped the season was over soon.

\--

Olli’s phone buzzed a few nights later just as he was carrying his plate out to Jussi’s dining table. Jussi’s wife Salla was coaxing their daughter into her chair, and Jussi was still in the kitchen, so Olli pulled out his phone, just in case.

It was Sid. **Heat starting. Can u stay at Juice’s?**

“Can I stay here?” Olli asked dumbly, just as Jussi walked in with the beer.

“What’s up?” Jussi asked.

“Sid, he’s—but I don’t have to stay here. I can go back to my place.” Olli hadn’t been to his hotel room in two weeks. He didn’t have a toothbrush there or any of his favorite sleeping t-shirts or his phone charger. But he didn’t have them here at Jussi’s either.

“Of course you can stay here,” Salla cut in. “Obviously.”

Olli and Sid hadn’t spent a night apart yet, much less however long it would take for Sid’s heat to break. But Olli hadn’t gotten a separation headache since Sochi, and sleeping in the same bed each night felt less desperate than it used to. A precaution, not a necessity. “Okay,” he said. 

He texted Sid back with the update and wished him well. He didn’t say _text me if you need me_. It’d be, well, needy. And unnecessary. Sid wouldn’t need him.

 **thanks** , came Sid’s reply, and then silence.

Olli ended up on the floor with baby Jaana. He made weird faces, and when her interest in that waned, his hand sneaked across the floor towards her on all fingers, closer and closer. When he was finally in tickling range, he struck. This earned him a muted giggle—not his greatest endorsement. “You’re a tough crowd,” he told her. She considered this soberly for a moment, then farted.

Every so often Olli checked his phone. There were texts from Beau and from Harry, down in Wilkes-Barre, and Facebook posts from several of his night owl cousins. 

He didn’t _need_ Sid, not so soon. His head didn’t ache with the tension of a rubber band ready to snap, the way it had a month ago. (Fuck, a _month_ ago.) 

Still, Olli had trouble sitting still. When Jaana started to cry and Jussi swooped in to take her to bed, Olli went and found Salla in the kitchen. She was bent over a slip of paper on the counter, a pen in hand. “Can I help?” Olli asked awkwardly, even though it seemed obvious that hers was a one-person job. But she smiled at him and pointed him at the dishwasher, and he’d been around Jussi’s house often enough that he knew where most things went without help.

He buzzed with restless energy, like a seltzer. It wasn’t horniness, though he might have tried getting off if he were alone. Instead he went looking for Jussi. “Is it all right if I use your treadmill?” Olli asked. “And some gym shorts?”

The treadmill helped some. By the time he stepped off again, sweat was stinging his eyes and running down the sides of his nose, and that niggling certainty that he should be somewhere else was muted almost to nothing. 

He took a shower, ate a midnight snack, and brushed his teeth with the toothbrush and travel toothpaste Salla set out for him. He got under the covers of the bed in the guest bedroom she directed him to. After looking at his phone one last time, he turned off the lamp, and resolutely shut his eyes.

\--

Olli’s phone chirped much too early, when the soft glow behind the curtains might have been dawn or might just have been street lamps in the night. He squinted at the time; it was before seven. He groaned and typed his passcode, and then he saw Sid’s name and was as suddenly, sharply awake as if someone had dumped ice water on him.

**can you come home**

Olli sat up in bed. He stared at the words and stared some more, and then he closed his eyes and saw them emblazoned on his eyelids. He gulped a breath, then another one. He looked at his phone again. There was nothing more. He scrolled up, but no, the last text from Sid before this was from last night. 

**why?** Olli typed. His bare skin began to goosebump. His phone rang with an incoming call, and he nearly dropped it. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Sid breathed, ragged, and just the one word was enough to make Olli’s dick stir and his chest ache, both at once. 

“Are you okay?” Olli demanded.

“Not really.” Sid chuckled, kind of. It was a miserable sound. “So this going it alone shit fucking sucks when you’re bonded. Can you—do you think you could come back?”

There was nothing Olli wanted so much in the world as to make his bonded feel better by sticking his dick in him. He swallowed that down, all those intruding alpha feelings. Squeaking a little, he said, “Are you sure? I mean, can you—are you sure you want me to?”

“Olli, I swear, I am really fucking sure. Please.”

Olli might have held out a little longer, tried to find some other way to ask _Will you hate me after_ , but the _please_ did him in. “Okay,” he said shakily. “Okay, I have to get dressed and tell Jussi and get in the car—”

“I think it snowed last night,” Sid said.

Olli tried to follow the thought process on that one and gave up. “I’ll clean the car off first,” he promised. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Sid breathed, and he ended the call.

Olli threw yesterday’s clothes on and patted his pockets absently. Striding down the hallway, he passed the kitchen, where Salla was feeding the baby. “I have to go,” Olli said. The words seemed too loud. “Can you tell Jussi?”

“Sure,” she said. “Are you hungry? Do you need something to eat?”

“I can’t. I have to go.”

She gave him a long look while he fidgeted in place. “You’ll have to scrape your car. Come back in before you leave, all right?”

“Okay,” he muttered. Pulling on his coat and hat, his lined winter boots, he went out into the cold, gray morning, and started his car and heater. He scraped the windows mechanically, only halfway around did he realizing his gloves were still stuffed in his coat pocket.  
Just as he finished the last window, Salla appeared on the other side of the car, her robe wrapped tightly around her. She handed him a plastic grocery bag swinging with something. “You have to eat,” she told him. Vapor puffed from her mouth with each word. “Take care.”

“I will.” Who knew, it might’ve been the truth.

The sky had cleared after the snow last night, and frozen crust crunched under Olli’s wheels as he turned out of Jussi’s driveway. He drove home riding the speed limit on white, unplowed streets. He parked in the garage, in the spot Sid had cleaned out for him a week ago, and charged into the house. 

The house smelled of heat. Faint at first, but stronger as he made his way to the stairs. He climbed them and reached Sid’s bedroom door, and Sid’s heat slammed him in the face, a strike between the eyes. Olli stumbled, like heat was a thing he could trip over. He tried to breathe, but the air was so thick that for a moment he had to lean against the wall. His heart was beating way too hard, and five steps behind him, he was sure, was the woman from the department store. A walkie-talkie to get security in, if the guy got rough. 

No. 

“Sid?” Olli called. A groan drifted out into the hall. Olli pushed the door open. 

“Hey,” Sid said. He struggled upright, a bulky silhouette against the murky light let in by the blinds. “Hey, you came.”

“You asked,” Olli said. He realized that he was still in his boots and coat. He shed them, though not as fast as he’d put them on. Now that he was here, Sid safe within range of Olli’s eyes and nose, some of the panic had begun to recede, though there was a sour, distressed base note in the air that burned in his nose.

“You didn’t have to come,” Sid said, as if he hadn’t said _please_.

“Yes, I did.” Olli stripped off sweatshirt, jeans, socks, until he was standing there in his undershirt and boxers. Sid watched him, expression hidden in shadow. “You know I did.”

Sid exhaled, shaky. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Shut up,” Olli said quietly. He planted his knee on the bed, braced a hand on Sid’s shoulder, and cupped Sid’s jaw with the other. Sid froze, and Olli leaned in and caught Sid’s lips in a kiss. Sid held very still as Olli mouthed at him once, twice, and then retreated, just far enough to rest his forehead against Sid’s. Sid was damp with sweat and a little feverish.

“That’s, uh. Not really why I asked you to come here.”

“Too bad.” Olli closed his eyes and breathed Sid in, still familiar even under the roiling organic stench of heat. The world outside, even the bedroom walls receded. There was no one beyond the two of them, no time except now. Olli blew out a sigh and stepped back. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“God, just fuck me.” Sid crawled onto all fours. Olli’s eyes had adjusted now; he could make out the slick glistening wetly on the backs of Sid’s thighs. Olli inhaled and was not disappointed. The boner he’d popped as soon as he walked in the front door began to feel urgent. He shoved off his shirt and boxers and crawled up onto the bed behind Sid. He pressed a kiss to Sid’s hip, just above the swell of his ass. The impulse felt like the ghost of another time, before Sid had presented himself to Olli. Before Olli had caught sight of that slick. 

He gripped Sid’s hip as he lined himself up. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Sid sighed. “Go for it.”

Olli went for it. After he recovered from the first delicious drag of Sid around his dick, he began to move. Sid dropped to his elbows and braced for each thrust. They found a rhythm, gasping in unison. Sid’s slick-wet thighs slapped against Olli, and Sid’s grunts seemed to lodge in Olli’s chest. Here was Sid. Here was his bonded. Here was home.

Arousal built steadily, like a rising sea, and crested finally over Olli like a wave. He gasped through it, eyes shut tight. His knot began to bloom inside Sid, and Sid shuddered around it. 

Finally it was over. Together, Sid and Olli shifted onto their sides, with Olli tucked tightly against Sid’s back, his knot firmly lodged. Olli reached around and smoothed a hand over Sid’s belly. Someday they’d do this, and Olli would put a baby in there. Not for a long time, but that was okay. For now Olli only wanted to touch Sid, soothe him. It was all okay. Olli was here now.

\--

“What was it like before I got here?” Olli asked. Sid’s head was tucked under Olli’s chin, his face pressed against Olli’s neck.

Sid tensed. “Lonely,” he mumbled. Olli gently squeezed Sid’s neck, just below the nape, and Sid burrowed deeper. The sour smell of distress had faded from him by now, overwhelmed by sex and sweat. 

Olli bent and kissed Sid’s hair.

\--

Olli woke up hungry. And sticky. And sore. Opening his eyes, he inched backward and slid out of Sid. He took a sniff, and then he pressed a hand to Sid’s shoulder blade, just to confirm: heat over. Sid shifted under Olli’s palm. After a moment, he wriggled onto his back. “Hey.” Sid’s voice was rough.

“Hey.” Olli wanted to follow Sid’s voice and find his face in the dark. He wanted to kiss him. Instead he pulled his hand away and said, “How do you feel?”

The silence held for a long moment, and then Sid said, “Good. I feel really good. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Olli said. 

“You?”

Olli took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Really good.”

He could hear Sid breathing. He could very nearly feel the rise and fall of Sid’s chest, though they weren’t touching anymore. He’d fucked Sid more times than he could remember. He’d held Sid close and comforted him, and Sid had let him. If he didn’t move, if neither of them left this close, private darkness, it would be fine.

“I’m hungry,” Olli said. “And I need a shower.”

“Fucking right? Oh my god.” Sid shifted on the bed, and then light shone blindingly in Olli’s eyes from the bedside table. By the time he could see again, Sid was already on his feet, peering at his phone with intense concentration. Finally he noticed Olli, still standing there. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Olli said, and went to take his shower.

At first all he could do was let the hot water flow over him. He catalogued bruises he vaguely remembered acquiring: this one on his shin from when Sid accidentally kicked him, this one from Sid holding on too tight as he came. Olli’s thighs were sore from thrusting and his dick from chafing. 

Olli wished they’d showered together. Olli could imagine Sid standing under the spray: dark eyes slitted almost shut, bruises stark on winter-pale skin. Maybe Sid would humor Olli, let Olli wash him off, ever so carefully.

Yeah, right. Resolutely Olli squeezed bath gel onto his washcloth and began to clean himself in earnest.

Food was next. Now, some untold time after he’d arrived, Olli remembered the bag Salla had thrust into his hands. He went out to the garage, numbing the soles of his feet on the chilly concrete. The bag was still where he left it in the passenger seat. It had two sandwiches in it. He opened the bag, and the smell that drifted out was—not appetizing. So much for that.

When he got back to the kitchen, Sid was already digging into one of his frozen meals. Another one sat on the counter, freshly microwaved. Olli inhaled that, then a second, and was partway through a third before he began to slow down. Across the table, Sid’s head was bowed over his own plate, his dark hair curly-damp. He seemed very far away. Mid-chew, he looked up and caught Olli’s eye, and hurriedly he swallowed. “How are you doing?”

“Better now,” Olli said, nodding towards his plate.

“No, but. You’re okay? I’m sorry you had to—”

“I’m not,” Olli gritted out. “I’m glad I was able to—to help.” He dropped his eyes to his plate. _It feels good to take care you_ , he wanted to say, but that was too much. _I liked it_ would be even worse. Olli tried to gather his thoughts together. “But you’re okay? This doesn’t feel… bad?”

“Bad?”

Olli screwed up his courage and met Sid’s gaze. “Like last time.”

Sid sat up straight. “Was it like last time for you?”

“I guess not,” Olli said awkwardly. “I remember most of it this time.” The slick drag of Sid sliding down onto Olli’s dick, the tickle of Sid’s hair on Olli’s chin. Sid’s grip like iron on Olli’s hip. Oh yeah, Olli remembered it. His face heated.

Sid flushed a little, too, but he quickly sobered and said, “But you thought it would be.”

Olli shrugged. 

“Shit.” Sid scrubbed his hand over his face. “And that’s what you thought you were coming back to?”

“I didn’t know! But you—you needed me. You said.” Before Sid’s face could fall too far, Olli added, “I wanted to, anyway.”

“Even though…?”

Olli thought about Sid, overwarm and burrowed into Olli’s arms despite it. Olli had run his fingers up and down the knobs of Sid’s spine and breathed in the scent of Sid’s hair until he was light-headed. But Sid didn’t want to hear that kind of shit, and Olli—

Olli didn’t want to share it. Instead he shrugged. “Yeah.”

Sid’s face twisted into something complicated. Olli supposed Sid wasn’t sure how bad he should feel: not at all, in Olli’s opinion, but it wasn’t like Sid was going to ask what Olli thought. “It’s fine,” Olli said. “It’s done now. And it was okay for you?”

Sid nodded at the table top. “Yeah, it was fine. You—you did a good job. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Olli said. It did not feel less inadequate the second time.

“But if you want to talk about it later, or whatever—you know you can talk to me, right?”

“Of course,” Olli said. He stood and took both their plates to the sink, feeling a little sick for no reason he could name.

\--


	6. Chapter 6

They’d fucked through the Tampa game, it turned out, and the St. Louis game. The Pens had lost both. Maybe that was why, when Sid and Olli walked into the locker room for practice the next day, nobody seemed inclined to chirp them. 

Olli rounded his shoulders against the stares and hummed to distract himself from any whispers. Sid kept to himself, too. It didn’t stop Scuds from breaching Sid’s space and muttering something too low for Olli to hear. Nor could he hear Sid’s reply, but he could smell it: anger, sharp and sour. Olli sidled closer, catching Scuds’s eye. Olli lifted his chin, and Scuds retreated to his own stall.

“I was fine,” Sid said, without looking over.

“Oh,” Olli said, the word escaping before he could stop it. 

Sid turned, and he must have seen something pitiful in Olli’s eyes. He squeezed Olli’s arm and said, “Sorry. It’s just—sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Olli said, and decided it was a good time to see Dana about the corner of his jersey number that was tearing loose.

They hosted the Yotes the next night. Sid got an assist on Jussi’s power play goal and two minutes in the box for putting his stick where he shouldn’t. Olli didn’t get so much as a shot on goal, only a minus-one in his box score.

In the beginning of the season, the ice had been the only place Olli’s life made any sense. Off it, he’d been nineteen, living alone in a hotel suite, far away from his billet family and the team he still thought of as his, back in London. But on the ice, everything just seemed to _work_. The plays opened themselves to him, and the puck flew from his stick like it knew where he wanted it, and approved.

But the puck felt like it was fighting him, now. The plays were opaque. And Olli only knew one fix. After the Yotes game, he went to the weights room. Nisky was doing leg work down the way, but Olli lay back on the bench and tuned him out. Here he had to focus on his breathing. He had to pay attention to each muscle he worked and to all the others that he wasn’t supposed to be working. There was no room for other concerns or anything except the burn in his muscles, the inhale as he lowered the dumbbells level with his chest and the exhale as he pushed them towards the ceiling again.

He groaned through the final lift of the set and dropped the dumbbells, and suddenly Sid’s face hung into view. “Hey,” Sid said.

“Hey.” For a little while, Olli had almost forgotten. It had been a pleasant few minutes. He wondered if he should feel bad about that, and decided he didn’t care.

“How many more, you figure?” Sid asked.

Olli sat up and rolled his shoulders. “A few more.”

“Cool. I’ll get some in too, then.” Sid drifted away to the mats and immediately started muttering to himself, too low for Olli to hear. Olli sipped water and watched Sid hunt for weights—probably what he was grumbling about, because he always grumbled about that. But finally he found the ones he wanted and put them on the bar, lifted the bar onto the back of his neck, and dropped slowly into his first squat.

The thing about Sid’s famous ass—about any hockey ass—was that it was _functional_. What it looked like at rest was irrelevant. What it could do on the ice, that was the most important of all, but of course there it was well hidden under the protective padding of hockey pants, and a person could only appreciate the effects.

Here, Sid in his sweats, dropping and rising again: this was the best of both worlds. Sid was on his third descent before Olli realized he was staring and also that he’d probably had twice the recovery time he needed before the next set. And that he had the beginnings of a boner.

Olli heaved a sigh—at his dick, himself, the disappointment of the game—and then he picked up the dumbbells again. After the chest presses he worked his arms, and as he finished those he was thinking about his lats when Sid appeared in front of him. Sid was sheened in sweat; Olli wanted to taste it. Fuck. “What?” he asked, too sharply. 

Sid’s eyebrows rose. “Just wondered if you wanted to get out of here soon.”

Olli tried to push away the kind of thoughts that Sid could smell on him, but it was probably too late. “I had some more I wanted to do.”

“We already played a game, Olli. It’s fine. We’ll get some more in tomorrow.”

“I have to get my head straight,” Olli said. It was hard to focus. This close, it was almost like he _could_ taste Sid, so near and concentrated, unlike the general diluted stench of bodies and gear on the bench or in the locker room. “I have to—that game sucked.”

“It was close,” Sid said.

“It was the _Coyotes_.”

Sid’s hand closed loosely around Olli’s bicep, and instantly the tension in Olli began to ease. “Come home?” 

“That’s not playing fair,” Olli said, mock-scowling.

Sid grinned. “I don’t remember promising to play _fair_.”

That grin wasn’t fair, all false white teeth and shining dark eyes. Fuck, Olli wanted to do so many things to Sid, and he wouldn’t get to do any of them. Because that was for heats, and heats weren’t real. None of this was real. 

“Olli?”

Olli shook out of Sid’s grip. “Give me twenty minutes.”

It was more like twenty-five, and then a shower after that. When Olli finally emerged into the staff cafeteria, Sid was sitting at one of the high table across from Duper, sipping from a mug, completely at ease. Not at all like Olli’d kept him hanging for half an hour. He slid off the stool as Olli approached, calling a goodbye to Duper as he went.

“Good workout?” he asked Olli.

“Yeah,” Olli said, and braced himself for the next question. But there wasn’t one. They crunched through fresh snow to Sid’s car, and they drove home through empty streets, glittering with the light from the street lamps. It was beautiful and quiet and still, and Olli didn’t want the ride to end, although now the combined effects of the workout and the game were really starting to hit him.

Maybe that was why Sid was so quiet. He let them in, and Olli ate a last snack and followed Sid to bed. He was asleep almost the moment he lay down.

\--

“Something’s bothering you,” Sid said the next morning.

After last night’s lack of questions, Olli had let his guard down. More fool him. He scowled at the contents of the blender, a push of a button away from a smoothie. “I’m fine,” he said, and turned the blender on. But he had to turn it off again sometime. He poured the drink out into an oversized glass and just for a moment he considered fleeing to his room—the room with his stuff in it, anyway.

But it wouldn’t do any good, and instead he sat at the table across from Sid. That was what two and a half months of a bond meant: they could survive not touching at meals.

“You’re pissed at me,” Sid began again. 

“I’m not pissed at you.” 

“You’re upset about something.”

Sid wasn’t going to let it fucking go. “The game was shit, okay? And I’m pissed about it. So just—fuck off.” Immediately Olli wanted to apologize. He scowled into his smoothie instead and then took a big gulp of it.

“Okay,” Sid said, placatingly. “Okay. Just, tell me if something’s up?”

“Why?” Was this the bond acting up again, this vicious anger out of nowhere? “You don’t tell me what’s up with you.” 

Olli was looking Sid in the eye, so he saw the flare of anger that he’d seen on the ice so many times. “There’s nothing _up_ with me.”

“But if there were, would you tell me? You talk to Flower or Kuni or whoever, not to me. I guess that’s fine, because this—” _isn’t real_ “—is temporary. But I don’t want to talk to you, either.”

“Oh,” Sid said softly. “Right, sure. Sorry. You’re right.” He didn’t get up, but he seemed to retreat farther behind his plate of breakfast, into his phone.

 _Good_ , Olli thought. But he drank his smoothie and looked at his morning texts from his mom and dad and brothers. The width of the table felt like a chasm, with Sid on the other side of it, impossibly far. 

They drove to the rink together, and somehow Olli managed to keep on holding in all the things he wanted to say. They were piling up these days, but this time he wouldn’t be the one to blurt it all out, like a kid. Adults could keep their thoughts to themselves. They knew the difference between what was real and what wasn’t. Adults controlled themselves and kept it in their pants. And if Olli was going to play hockey in the NHL at fucking nineteen years old, he had to be an adult. There was no other way.

Practice was kind of shit. Everyone was tense; Arizona had been their fourth loss in a row, and the Kings were rolling into town on a string of four wins, half of them on the road. Quick was hot. And the Pens were tired. A lot of guys playing more minutes than usual, making up for all the guys who were out. Guys still recovering from the Olympics—Geno had just finally pulled himself out of his slump before he got injured, again. Brooksie and Kuni were banged up and a step slow.

It was exhausting, sitting in his stall afterwards while Sid answered all the usual questions. When the media finally left, Sid let the towel drop that he’d kept over the ice on his wrist—flimsy camouflage, but none of the beats had asked him about it outright yet. “How’s it feeling?” Olli asked.

Sid gave him a look, and Olli wondered if he wasn’t supposed to ask. Maybe that was what the morning’s conversation meant. But Sid shook his head and said, “Just banged up.” It’d been more than a week since the Philly game. Olli was dubious. But it was not, he supposed, any of his business. “Hey, I’m getting a sandwich with Flower. I’ll meet you at the house? Flower can drop me off.”

“Sure,” Olli said. He’d as much as told Sid to talk to Flower instead of him. He didn’t get to be jealous that Sid took him up on it.

He did his workout. There was no Sid this time to appear at his side and tell him to ease up, so he didn’t. He pushed all his feelings into the weights until he couldn’t quite finish the last set. His legs trembled as he returned the weights to the rack—the right way, like Sid grumbled about. He went for a shower, and then he called Jussi and invited himself over for late lunch.

“It’s leftovers,” Salla warned as she let him in.

“Anything’s fine,” Olli said.

He ate leftover pot roast and played with the kids. Sprawling belly-down on the floor, he made faces at Jaana, and later he swung Liisa gently around by her feet, and it was so very uncomplicated. Even Liisa’s eventual tired whining seemed simple, if not pleasant.

She was put to bed for a much belated nap, and then Salla asked, “Everything okay with you?”

She’d listen, if Olli wanted to vent. Sid wouldn’t begrudge Olli talking to her, he was pretty sure. But the tense words from the morning felt private, and Olli didn’t want to share them or hold Sid up for scrutiny. It felt disloyal. “I’m ready for the season to be over,” he said instead, and let her read between the lines.

Olli drove home feeling better. Grounded. The kids helped. Cleaning up around the kitchen with Salla helped. It was real. Olli had been hungrier than he realized to just be around people whose relationships would outlive the season—several seasons, even. Their home might well not be theirs for much longer, if Jussi signed on elsewhere for next year, but _they_ would be all together, still. Someday Olli would have that.

He pulled into Sid’s garage just as the winter dusk was falling. He had an hour yet before any games started, so he settled on the couch in the entertainment room. As he was scrolling through Sid’s backlog of saved reality shows, he noticed a familiar, unwelcome ache at the back of his skull. Fuck. He threw the remote aside and went looking for Sid.

He found him in the living room under a reading lamp, open book in his hands. “Hey,” Sid said.

Olli flopped next to Sid, thigh to thigh, pressed his hand to Sid’s bare knee, and closed his eyes. Sid sighed out, long and slow, as though he’d been needing this too. The asshole hadn’t called Olli or come looking, either. But that was no good to think about with a headache, so Olli didn’t. The pressure seemed to seep out of his skull with his breath, so he focused on taking each one slow and deep. Sid shifted next to Olli; he heard a page turn.

Olli kept his eyes closed a good while longer than he needed to, to the point that it began to feel a little silly. He sat up and opened them, though he didn’t move his hand.

“Hey,” Sid repeated.

“Hey.”

“I wasn’t paying attention. Glad you were.”

Olli slanted a glance at Sid, but it sounded like Sid was telling the truth, rather than sitting here in pain because he didn’t want to bother Olli. It was possible Olli’s fuse was a little short, still. Olli nodded—a _you’re welcome_ if Sid wanted to take it that way.

Sid set his book on his lap. It looked like another one of his history things, the kind that would have been too dull for Olli even in Finnish. “You have a good time with Jussi?”

“Yeah, it was good. You? With Flower?”

Sid snorted. “More or less.” Olli looked over, eyebrows high, and Sid sighed gustily. “Yeah, so, I think I owe you an apology.”

“For what?” Olli said warily.

“For not listening to you, I think. Flower asked me today what you needed—he suggested that between now and the end of the season there might be something else you wanted from me besides me being sorry for shit. And he said I’d know what it was, if I’d been listening. But I thought I already knew what you wanted.”

“What was that?” Olli asked curiously.

Sid bowed his head. “To get out of this bond as fast as fucking possible. To keep your life from getting fucked over by mine anymore than it already was.”

“I don’t want my life to get fucked over.” That seemed a safe thing to agree upon. “But it’d be less fucked if…” He trailed off.

“If what?” Sid met his eyes, earnest and so sad it made Olli’s heart twist. “Please, just tell me. I promise I’m listening this time.”

Olli ducked his head so as not to have to look at Sid anymore, with his feelings all written across his face. Olli fidgeted at the seam of his jeans, trying to find his courage, and Sid waited patiently. Finally Olli ventured, “I’d like it if you talked to me about stuff. Not just hockey shit. But about the bond, where you’re at.”

Sid blew out a breath. “I kind of figured that. Flower helped me figure it out, I mean.”

“It’s hard, feeling like—like I’m in a bond by myself.”

“Shit, Olli,” Sid said. Olli shrugged, unsure what to do with that sorrowful note in Sid’s voice, but then Sid’s hand slid over Olli’s wrist and tugged, and Olli followed it, twisting on the couch to let Sid put his arms around him and pull him in. 

Olli pressed his face to Sid’s neck; he couldn’t help himself. Sid’s arms were strong and warm. He smelled of regret and mustard. “We don’t do this as much anymore,” Olli said. “I know we don’t need it as much, either, but—”

“Yeah,” Sid breathed, warm on Olli’s neck. “It helps, right? Not just with the nausea. Or whatever.”

It was all just bodies, but Olli still felt better than he had in days, a week—since Sid’s heat, probably. That thought soured things a bit, but Olli pushed it away. He needed this maybe even more than he needed Sid to talk to him. 

Finally, Olli started to feel the awkward position in his back, and he let Sid go and pulled away. Sid reached across and ruffled Olli’s hair, looking fond. Fortunately Sid seemed to realize how weird that was and withdrew his hand to his lap before Olli embarrassed them both by leaning into it. “I’m sorry,” Sid said. “I know I’ve said that a bunch of times, but this time it’s for something I can do something about. I’m going to be better.”

“Okay,” Olli said.

“Okay?”

Olli ventured a smile. “When Sidney Crosby says he’s going to get better at something, he does, right?”

“I try,” Sid said, flushing a little. “So, um. Listen, I know we just ate, but I was thinking beef stew for dinner. Do you want to come help? It’d—” He ventured Olli a look. “It’d be easier for me to talk that way.”

“Sure,” Olli said, without hesitation. He followed Sid out the door reflecting that there was very little he’d say no to, if Sid framed it like that. It was probably a very good thing for Olli that Sid wasn’t the kind of guy to take advantage of it.

Sid set Olli dicing onions and moved to another part of the counter with his cubes of raw beef and his seasoned flour. Once they were all settled in, Sid took a deep breath and said, “This isn’t news to you, but I worry about you, with the bond and everything. I was worried even before the bond.”

That got Olli’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’re really young to be in the NHL. No, listen,” he said, when Olli started to protest. “Statistically, you’re really young. There’s only a handful of guys your age who even get a game, and even fewer that stick it out for the year.” Softly, “I was one of those guys.”

“Right.” Olli wanted to put his knife aside and focus on Sid, but he thought maybe that defeated the purpose of Sid putting them both to work in the first place. 

“There’s just a lot of shit thrown at you, all at once, and you’re younger than everyone, and then they’re talking about making you captain next year—uh, that was me, obviously, not you. And if you’re good enough to be here at eighteen or nineteen, that means they’re expecting the fucking world from you.”

“Yeah,” Olli said. He found himself surprisingly grateful for the onions: something to focus his attention on.

“And you’re trying to live up to that. And it’s just—it’s hard.”

“I do okay,” Olli protested.

“I know you do. But it’s already a lot to deal with, and then this bonding shit on top of it—I just worry about you. That’s all.”

“I know,” Olli said. For a moment he let the weight of Sid’s concern settle on him, which he usually tried to avoid. It was heavy, stifling. It’d suffocate him if he thought about it long: another expectation to live up to. “How come we’re talking about me again?” he demanded. “I thought we were going to talk about you.”

Sid looked over from his bowl. Dredging, that’s what he called it when he floured the meat. “I mean, I don’t know what to say, here.”

Olli deflated. He thought Sid had understood what he wanted; he didn’t know how to ask again. “Never mind.” 

“Olli—”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t. I just—you’ve already got plenty of shit to deal with. I don’t want you to have to deal with mine, too.”

“Right,” Olli agreed. His eyes were burning again. From the onions. Fuck. 

“I’m fucking it all up again, aren’t I?” 

Olli braced himself against the counter and tried to blinked his vision clear. How stupid would it be to miss games for cutting his thumb off, after all of this? From the corner of his eye he watched Sid approach. Sid reached towards Olli’s arm with floury fingers, not quite touching, and then retreated again.

“Ask me,” Sid said quietly. “Whatever it is, I’ll try to answer.”

When Olli finally found the courage to look, he found his own misery reflected back to him in Sid’s eyes. Olli couldn’t tear his gaze away, even though it hurt. He struggled to remember any of the things he ached to know. He wasn’t brave enough to ask most of them, things like _Did you like heat with me?_ or _Will you miss this when it’s over?_ or _Do you even like me?_

Finally, he said, “What do you want?”

Sid blinked at Olli. “What?”

“You said you thought you knew what I wanted. What do you want?”

“From the bond, or…?”

Olli shrugged. “Whatever.” He wanted anything, even crumbs; he wasn’t really particular about the topic. Still, he summoned his bravery, and he said, “From me?”

“Olli, I don’t—I don’t want _anything_ from you.”

Oh. 

Olli had figured, and yet. How could just hearing it aloud hurt so much, when it wasn’t even a surprise?

Now Sid did reach out and gently grip Olli’s shoulder. “You don’t have to do anything, okay?”

“But—” Olli’s voice was a croak. Sid’s hold tightened. Maybe he was getting a whiff of Olli’s misery now. Olli couldn’t do anything about that. With the tiny scrap of courage he had left, he whispered, “But what if I want to?”

There was a pause. “What?”

Olli lifted his eyes to Sid’s. The view was blurry. “I know I’m just nineteen, and there’s lots of shit I don’t know, and I’m still learning how to play at this level and do my laundry, and—and—”

“Olli—”

“—and I _know_ it’s just alpha bullshit and the bond that makes me feel this way. I know you don’t need taking care of, you’re fine, you don’t need me at all, but—” Olli swallowed around the lump in his throat. This time Sid didn’t interrupt. “—I wish you did. Even just a little.” He turned away from Sid and wiped at his wet cheeks. His breath kept hitching, no matter how he tried to hold it steady.

“I—” Sid began, and stopped. Olli looked over, too far gone now for self-preservation. Sid stared back like he’d never seen Olli before. He took a sharp breath, and he said, “I think I’ve been getting some things really wrong.”

“Like what?” Olli flushed at the sound of his own voice, thick with tears. He sounded like a little kid.

Sid huffed. “Everything?”

Olli blinked at him, not understanding and so tired of it that all he could was stare. And sniffle.

Sid shifted nearer and paused. “I know you said this was cheating, and I won’t—if you don’t want to, we don’t have to. But can I—?” He opened his arms, and Olli stepped into them. They closed around him, and he pressed as close to Sid as he could. Sid squeezed Olli’s arm. Some of that familiar calm flowed into Olli, but not enough. Sid murmured, “I thought I was helping you, keeping stuff to myself.”

“We talked about this. A month ago, we talked about this. You said we could be partners.”

“I have a hard time remembering, I guess.” Sid’s tone was dark and bitter. Probably he was pissed at himself again, but Olli could just not deal with that right now.

“Partners help each other with stuff,” Olli said. His voice was all clogged up now.

“Olli, you’ve already helped me so much. I can’t—it’s not fair to ask you for anything else.” Sid stroked Olli’s back. Gradually Olli’s heartbeat slowed. The tick of the kitchen clock seemed loud when the only other sound was Sid’s breathing and Olli’s own blood in his ears. 

“Is it because I’m an alpha?”

There was a pause. “Is _what_ because you’re an alpha?”

“I want to take care of you,” Olli mumbled. “I know that’s asshole alpha bullshit. O’s can take care of themselves. You don’t need me to defend you or—or any of that shit.”

Sid retreated just far enough to look Olli in the eye. His hands trailed down to rest lightly on Olli’s wrists. “Is that what they teach you in Finland?” Sid asked.

“Yeah?” Olli asked, confused. “I mean, here too, right? Coach talked to me about it. About not getting in fights for you, remember?”

“That’s not really the same. And anyway, _I’m_ the one who got in a fight.”

Olli looked doubtfully at Sid. “Okay.”

“Wanting to take care of your bonded isn’t some weird primal alpha thing. You know it goes both ways, right?” Sid stroked Olli’s arm. “I’m not going to throw you to the wolves or anything, either.”

“Because you’re the captain. Because I’m nineteen.”

Sid leaned his forehead against Olli’s temple. Very quietly, he said, “I’m pretty sure those are not the only reasons.”

“But you don’t want me to take care of you,” Olli pointed out. 

Sid breathed into Olli’s ear for a while. His nearness was not enough to soothe all Olli’s long-held anxieties, but it was a comfort anyway. “That’s my fault,” Sid said finally.

“It’s not your _fault_ —”

“My issue, then. My hangup.” Sid stepped back far enough to look Olli in the eye. “I’m not some perfectly adjusted guy, okay? I have a lot of—hangups. One of the reasons my relationships never last very long, I guess.” His mouth twisted bitterly. Olli’s heart twisted with it. “I’m not too good at letting people help me, especially when—but it’s not about you, okay? Wanting to take care of your partner isn’t an asshole thing or an alpha thing. I’m pretty sure betas feel that way, too—you should ask Juice.” Sid gave Olli’s arm a last squeeze and stepped away. He regarded Olli soberly. “When you try to help me, I’ll try to let you.”

“Okay. But is there anything, like—fuck.” He closed his eyes. 

A moment later, Sid’s shoulder pressed against his. “What?”

“Is there something specific? That you want. That I can do.” This whole conversation was going to feel like a waste otherwise. Tears and snot and confessions, all for nothing.

The silence drew out long enough that Olli dared to open his eyes. Sid’s brow was furrowed, deep in thought. Finally, with all the patented Crosby earnestness, Sid said, “Look, I swear I’m not being flippant or anything, but, uh. It’s nice when you help with the cooking? I mean when we do it together. I like it.” Sid colored a little.

“Really?” Olli said blankly. Of course he helped with the cooking. His mom raised him right.

“Uh, I don’t know. It’s dumb, sorry.” 

Sid’s flush was deepening by the moment. Before it could get any darker, Olli hastened, “It’s not dumb. Of course I’ll help. You can teach me more.”

Sid smiled cautiously. “I mean, there’s not a lot to teach about stew. It pretty much all just goes in the pot.”

“You can show me,” Olli said, and began herding Sid back towards the counter. Eventually Olli found himself staring down the onions again. He steadied half an onion under one hand and took the vegetable knife in the other, and then he happened to catch Sid out of the corner of his eye. Sid was looking down at the meat in his hands, but a smile curled at the edge of his mouth.

Well, it was a start. Olli braced himself and began to dice.

\--

The hockey season waited for no man. Sid played a defenseman’s minutes the next night against the Kings, even more than Olli. The game ended in another one-goal loss. It occurred to Olli again to wonder if the bond was worth it if they were going to play like this, but the thought came to him as if from a distance, too far off to make out the details of and irrelevant anyway.

They boarded a plane to Columbus afterwards, with no time for Olli to work off his disappointment with weights. Instead he settled next to Sid, exhausted. “Okay?” Sid asked him.

“I want to go to sleep,” Olli said. He could have right then if it weren’t for the imminent threat of takeoff, which would just wake him up again. Instead he began pulling the blanket around himself, wedging it underneath him so it wouldn’t pull loose later. “You?” he asked, out of habit.

Sid hesitated long enough that Olli looked over, curious. Sid grimaced, pale and washed out under the lone overhead light. “My wrist, still.” It lay cushioned on an ice pack in his lap. 

“What do the trainers say?” Sid needed his blanket, too. Olli pulled it from where it had fallen between them and shook the folds out. Then he realized he was about to _tuck Sid in_ , and he flushed, hot and sudden and mortified.

Sid shrugged, not even looking at Olli. “Strained the tendons, time, rest, you know the drill. I’m stuck with it until the off-season, pretty much.”

“Sucks.”

“It really does.”

Fuck it, Olli decided. He draped the blanket across Sid, reaching to tuck the corners in and bracing for Sid’s inevitable comment. But Sid didn’t say a word, and finally Olli retreated, satisfied with his work. Then, as Olli got himself settled again, Sid slumped into him, a long, heavy fall against Olli’s side. Olli threw an arm around Sid’s shoulders because it seemed less awkward than the alternative. Sid went slack like a puppet with his strings cut. “Okay?” Sid mumbled.

Olli tightened his hold on Sid. His eyes drooped, impending takeoff or no. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

\--

Bylsma pulled Olli aside before morning skate. Olli had an inkling that it was about something he wouldn’t like. He was completely and utterly wrong about what that might be. “We’re sitting you tonight,” Bylsma said.

Olli stared. “Why?”

“It’s been a long season, and you’ve been playing a lot of minutes. We’re giving you a rest.”

“I’m fine,” Olli said. “We’ve all played a lot of minutes, with the injuries, and—”

“And we’ll sit some of the other guys, too. But tonight it’s you. So if you’ve had some extra work you wanted to get done on the ice, today’s a good time.”

Olli didn’t have any such thing. Olli wanted to do work during _games_. But he stayed out after practice and took shots on Zats from the point until Zats cried mercy. “Lunch?” Zats asked as he followed Olli off the ice.

“Actually,” Sid said, stepping away from the wall and scaring the bejesus out of Olli, “I was hoping to steal him from you.”

“I have to shower,” Olli said, still pulling himself back together and not trusting Sid’s easy smile even a little. He shouldered past Sid and down the tunnel. There were no reporters to waylay him and ask about the night’s game, because he was scratched, and none of the team bothered him while he was undressing, either.

Olli tried to will the tension in his shoulders down the drain along with the sweat and soap suds. Success: mixed. But if he stood under the shower head too long, Sid would probably come looking for him for whatever make-the-rookie-feel-better project he had in mind. So Olli stomped back out into the locker room to find Sid settled on a bench talking to Beau, finally returned from his November injury. Sid caught Olli’s eye and rose to his feet. “I wondered if you wanted to get lunch,” Sid said.

“That’s what Zats wanted, too,” Olli pointed out.

“Do you want to invite Zats?” Sid asked, like he’d do it if Olli asked. 

For just a moment Olli considered saying yes, just to be difficult. Then he blew out his breath and said, “No, it’s fine. Let’s go to lunch.”

They ended up at a barbeque place a few blocks from the hotel. It wasn’t the first time Olli had had barbeque, but it was the first time he’d ever been bonded to a guy eating pork ribs and getting sauce everywhere in the process. Sid wasn’t even embarrassed; he caught Olli watching him and just grinned, lips smeared dark and sticky. Olli couldn’t help but smile back, caught up in that warm humor in Sid’s eyes.

The next moment Olli flushed and returned his focus to his own ribs, which he was attempting to eat somewhat more neatly.

“Hey,” Sid said, knocking his shoe against Olli’s. Olli looked up, feeling like he’d been caught at something. “This place always makes me happy, you know? I was planning to bring you here anyway. I mean—”

“Before I got scratched?” Olli finished for him.

“Yeah, that. It’s not—they’re not saying they don’t trust you.”

“It’s a long season,” Olli quoted.

“Yeah.”

“I know, and I’m still pissed off. You can’t fix me being pissed off, Sid.”

Sid’s laugh was a soft huff under his breath. “Yeah, I know. But you’ll be out there again soon.”

“I know,” Olli said, even if there’d been a moment there when Bylsma had told him and his stomach had dropped and he hadn’t been _sure_. But he was sure now. He took a deep breath. “I know, so let’s just—”

“You’ve been really incredible,” Sid said. Olli blinked at him, his mind blank. Sid leaned forward on his elbows. “Seriously, like, what you’ve done with us? Coming in out of training camp as young as you are and earning a spot for the year, playing second pairing through all these injuries, going to the fucking Olympics and playing top pairing minutes on a medal-winning team? That’s unbelievable, Olli. Like maybe four or five guys a year do that, and they still don’t go to the Olympics and do what you did. You’re really fucking good, and you’re going to be great for us for a long, long time.”

“Oh,” Olli said faintly. 

“I mean, you know this,” Sid said, sitting back. He frowned and then took a napkin and began trying to wipe sauce off his elbow, sticky from the table.

“I don’t really think about it much. It’s distracting, you know? But—” Olli hesitated, but Sid was trying. So Olli would try, too. “But it’s different, hearing it from you.”

Sid searched Olli’s face. “Because I’m captain? Or—” His mouth twisted. “—because I’m Sidney Crosby?”

“No,” Olli said. He wasn’t sure he even knew before how weighty that one word could be. “I mean, yeah, of course, but that’s not why.”

Sid bowed his head over his empty plate. “I know what you mean.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. It’s like, you want your bonded to be proud of you, right?” 

It took Olli moment to put together what Sid was saying. “You don’t—you don’t need _me_ to be proud of you. You’re—” _Sidney Crosby_ , he was going to say, but he cut himself off.

Sid shrugged, eyes still fixed on the table. “It’s nice when you’re happy for me, you know? When I score a goal or whatever. Like you said. It’s different with you than with other people.”

Olli opened his mouth to call Sid on this obvious and insulting attempt to make Olli feel better, but something in Sid’s voice gave him pause. Sid’s shoulders were rounded in, his head dropped so low that all Olli could see of him was the crown of his dark, curly head. When Sid lied—to the press, for a prank, to Olli by omission—he did it looking straight on, eyes bright and daring anyone to disbelieve. He wasn’t doing that now.

Through Olli’s bewilderment came a wave of something warm and soft and tender. He wanted to thread his fingers through Sid’s or kiss Sid’s temple: impulses that would have been utterly alien three months ago. Now they felt natural. Still unfeasible, out of reach, but for just a moment Olli let himself consider them. 

“Yeah,” Olli croaked instead, inadequate and much too late. Sid looked up finally and flashed him a careful smile. Olli still couldn’t quite process it; it was so counter to everything he thought he knew. But he held onto it anyway, as sure as his bronze medal had been in his hand.

\--

It was a chippy game against the Jackets. Bortz fought Nick Foligno. Kuni finally opened the scoring midway into the third, and the Pens eventually won it off a snap shot from Beau, also assisted by Bortz. Desi didn’t make all that much of the minutes he took from Olli, or at least he didn’t get any points, which would have been unbearable. Olli watched it all from the press room, eating nachos.

They flew back to Pittsburgh afterward. Sid kept his wrist iced the whole flight, his mouth set in pain, though the rigid line of his shoulders relaxed somewhat when Olli settled into his side. 

Less than forty-eight hours later, they routed the Hawks on home ice. Flower stood on his head, and Sid scored twice, the second an empty netter on Olli’s pass up the zone. “Somebody has to score ‘em,” he told Olli. Olli just grinned down at him.

Later, though, as they walked across the employee parking to Sid’s car, Olli said, “That snap shot on the two-on-one—that was really pretty.”

Sid shrugged. “I just saw the defender go down a little early, I thought I could get it over him.” 

“That’s what you told the media,” Olli scoffed. “I was sitting right there.”

Sid looked over, eyebrow arched, daring Olli to make something of it. “Yeah?”

“I’m just saying, it was really pretty. Sid the sniper.” Olli prodded at Sid with his elbow.

Sid barked a laugh, his cheeks turning pink. “Yeah, okay. It was pretty nice. Oh my god, you look smug as shit right now, you know that?”

Olli didn’t even try to dim his grin, and he carried a warm glow of triumph with him all the way to bed that night.

\--

The next day, Marty suited up for practice for the first time since Sochi. There were cheers—maybe not as enthusiastic as they’d been towards the beginning of the year, before guys coming back from injury had lost its novelty value, but still. Nisky complained loudly about having to partner with Marty again while Geno and Nealer grumbled about having to listen to his music choices in the locker room.

“I think they missed me,” Marty told Olli. Marty had clearly missed hockey; he seemed to be trying not to grin at everyone and failing badly.

“I guess you want your minutes back now,” Olli said.

Marty slung an arm around Olli’s neck. “Nah, that sounds like work. Just give me enough to get a couple of points every game, you can keep the rest.”

“I’ll think about it,” Olli said, and Marty laughed and let go.

They played Carolina the next night: Carolina, with the losing record, coming in off two overtime losses in a row. Carolina who was leading the Pens 3-1 by midway through the third. Olli chased a puck into the corner, and just as he flipped it towards open ice, he was crushed to the glass. He skated to the bench, already aching where the inevitable bruise would form, all along his shoulder and hip.

“Okay?” Sid asked.

“Fine.” Olli rolled his shoulder, then again. It almost felt like something catching in there. “Was he big? I didn’t see.”

“No, but he was skating in pretty hard.”

“Physics,” Olli said, wincing. Something definitely felt a little weird up at the joint, but trying to feel it again could not possibly help, he decided. Deliberately he relaxed and turned his attention to game.

By the time the game was put to a merciful end, the twinge in Olli’s shoulder had settled into a constant, dull internal ache, and he went to see the trainers about it. Stewie hummed and made Olli show him his range of motion. Olli flinched as he felt that catch again. Stewie hummed some more and prescribed Olli painkiller and ice that night and an MRI in the morning. “And don’t sleep on it,” Stewie added.

Olli relayed this all to Sid on the drive home. When they got there, Sid took Olli to the kitchen and made him take off his shirt and go through all the same motions Stewie had. Olli shivered as Sid’s fingers prodded at him, and not just because of the chill. 

If Sid caught wind of any of what Olli was feeling, he politely ignored it. Finally Sid turned to the freezer for an ice pack. Olli took the opportunity to put his shirt back on and try to feel a little less exposed. 

“Here.” Sid shooed Olli to a chair and pressed the ice pack to his shoulder. Olli reached up to hold it in place, but Sid’s fingers lingered, his gaze fixed somewhere in the vicinity of Olli’s neckline.

“What is it?” Olli craned his neck to see.

Sid abruptly let go. “Nothing. MRI tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Olli said slowly. He’d said that already. As Sid walked away, Olli caught a tang of something he couldn’t quite place.

\--

“Rest,” was the pronouncement the next day. “Take today off, sit out the game tomorrow, we’ll see where you are after that.”

Olli found Sid standing in the team cafeteria, halfway through a smoothie. Olli pressed his face to the side of Sid’s neck. “Fuck.”

Gently Sid stroked Olli’s uninjured arm. “How bad?”

“I have to sit out a game. Maybe more.”

“We’ll beat Winnipeg for you tomorrow, how about that. I think that’ll clinch us for the division title, and we can lose all our games after that. You don’t have to play again until the playoffs.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Olli demanded, pushing away from Sid to turn the full force of his glare on him. Sid grinned wryly, undaunted. “Fuck,” Olli repeated.

Without it ever quite coming up in discussion, Olli understood that he was going on the roadie, even if he ended up sitting out all three games on it. “You told them I had to go, didn’t you,” Olli said as he and Sid stumbled out into the garage at ass o’clock in the morning to catch the plane.

“I—yeah, I did. Do you want to stay? We could call, I’m sure it’d be fine—”

“Of course I want to go,” Olli said. “Don’t be dumb.”

“I know we’ve been doing better—”

“—because the bond is stabilizing,” Olli said. It wasn’t something either of them had said out loud yet. 

Sid slammed the hatch shut and looked at Olli much too soberly for this early in the morning. “Yeah. But five days still seemed like a pretty long time apart.”

“Yeah.” The very idea of it was like a cold ache at the back of Olli’s throat. He tried to swallow it down. “Yeah, that’s a long time.”

\--

The Pens did win in Winnipeg. Sid assisted on a couple of goals; after Marty’s, the one that broke the tie and eventually turned out to be the game winner, Sid pointed to Olli up in the press box. “What’s that about?” Desi asked. He was stuck in the press box again, too, with Marty off injured reserve.

“I don’t know,” Olli mumbled, his face furnace-hot. He stuffed another nacho in his mouth and tried to look disinterested. “It’s not fair,” he said, surprising himself and Desi, too, from the way Desi startled. Or maybe Olli was just too loud. He dropped his voice, mindful of the press only a few seats away. “It’s not fair, all these people caring about… us. The Pens, Team Canada, Team Finland, our parents. It’s not their business.”

Desi’s eyes were round. “But they’re your parents.”

Olli thought about that. “I guess that’d be all right if _everyone else_ didn’t care about it, too. Everyone has an opinion, you know?”

Desi looked like a man desperately trying to have absolutely no opinions whatsoever. 

“But I guess that’s because it’s for hockey, right?” Olli said, mostly to himself. “If it was for real, maybe it wouldn’t be this way. But we kept it for hockey. So it is everyone’s business.” He slumped a little further in his swivel chair and picked at the remaining nacho fragments in the bottom of the paper boat.

“That’s rough,” Desi offered timidly. 

“Yeah.”

Sid was all grins when Olli went down to the locker room after the game. “Told you,” he said to Olli. Gently he draped his sweaty arm over Olli’s non-injured shoulder and squeezed the back of his neck. “No more regular season games for you.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Olli said, horrified that someone might overhear and decide Sid was onto something. But despite what he’d complained to Desi, when he glanced around, no one was paying any attention.

\--

The Pens lost miserably to Minnesota, shut out and four goals against. Sid iced his wrist on the plane again. He winced as Olli jostled him, messing with the blanket, and Olli tried to hold himself very still after that.

In Denver, the trainers looked Olli over before morning skate and conferred among themselves. Olli tried not to look too hopeful. “You’ll probably be fine,” Stewie said finally. “Try not to throw too many checks with that shoulder, eh?” 

It didn’t matter. At the end of video review, Bylsma listed the night’s scratches: Sid, Brooksie, Kuni, and Olli. “Everybody on this list is a little beat up. Let’s get you some rest and give some other people a chance to shine.” There was some grumbling from Nealer’s direction about how he shone just fine anyway.

So Olli spent another game in the press box, but this time he had Sid sitting to his right. Halfway through the first period, Sid pressed his ankle against Olli’s. Olli’d been feeling fine before, but now he felt _better_ , even with the prickles running up and down the back of his neck from all the stares he felt sure the media was giving them. 

The media hadn’t said anything, in all this time. Shero, his parents, Team Finland, but not any of the beats, even the most obnoxious ones. Maybe this was just one of those things they minded their own business about, like who showed up to practice with hickies or on the edge of heat. Maybe this was, in fact, fine. 

Olli leaned into Sid’s shoulder, watched Jussi bring the puck up ice, and shut out everything else in the world.

\--

Sid finished out the regular season with six shots on goal and two assists. Olli finished it with three shots on goal and a fierce and building ache in his shoulder, probably thanks to a few of those checks Stewie told him not to throw. After their shootout loss to Ottawa, a somehow ominous end to the regular season, Sid bundled Olli home from the rink and sat him on the couch for Sid to fuss over. “Did you take the painkiller?” Sid asked.

“Yes,” Olli said grudgingly. He wanted to lean a little harder into the ice pack Sid was holding to his shoulder, but from experience he knew that would only feel worse.

“It should have kicked in by now.” 

“I’ll be okay. We’re hockey players, right?” Olli tried for a smile. It was difficult. He was feeling a little white around the edges.

Sid pursed his mouth and just looked at the ice pack even more intently, like he was going to will numbness directly into the nerves.

“Hey. It’s okay.” Olli patted Sid’s thigh, the closest thing within reach. “You’re the one with a bum wrist.”

Sid’s frown deepened. “I’m going to ask them about a cortisone shot for you.”

“I think the trainers know what they’re doing.”

“Not always,” Sid muttered.

“Hey. Staring at it isn’t going to make it feel better.” Olli prodded at Sid until Sid finally tore his attention away from Olli’s shoulder and looked at Olli, instead. The set to Sid’s mouth said that someone was going to be sorry for something, but as Olli steadily held his gaze, Sid’s mulishness melted. He looked away. “Sid?” Olli asked, uncertain.

It took Sid a few moments to answer. “It’s hard seeing you hurting and not being able to do anything about it.”

“You’re holding the ice.”

Sid shook his head, unconvinced. 

The painkillers kicked in eventually, fuzzing out the worst of the pain and weighing down Olli’s head. His eyelids, too. He shivered as condensate from the ice pack dripped down his arm. Sid took the ice pack to the kitchen, and Olli struggled to sit upright. Bed sounded good, but that meant he had to get up, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. Maybe Sid would help.

But when Sid returned, he sat back down again. He picked at the damp sleeve of Olli’s t-shirt, once again intent on something. Olli was too tired to try and tease out what. He closed his fingers over Sid’s just to stop the fidgeting, but then he had Sid’s fingers in his, and they were strong and good, and he liked them.

Sid was so close, breath warm on Olli’s skin, eyes clear and focused. “I wish I could kiss you,” Olli said.

All of Sid’s fidgets and minute twitches stilled. 

“I won’t,” Olli hastened to add, lest Sid be concerned. “I know you don’t want it. We’re not like that. But I think it’d be nice.” Sometimes wanting Sid was a heat in Olli’s blood. Tonight it felt more like his shoulder, cold and numb and aching by turns, except the ache was located somewhere in his chest.

Eventually Olli, even in his exhausted and mildly fuzzy state, noticed that a silence had drawn out. He focused on Sid to find Sid looking back, eyes full of some feeling Olli couldn’t identify. As Olli watched, Sid leaned slowly in and pressed his mouth to Olli’s. Sid’s lips were soft and gentle, his kiss sweet, undemanding.

Just as it occurred to Olli to kiss back, Sid pulled away. Olli blinked at him. “Why did you do that?” Olli asked, when what he wanted to say was _Can we do it again?_

“We can talk about it tomorrow if you want,” Sid said. He rubbed Olli’s good shoulder. “Come on, let’s go to bed.”

\--


	7. Chapter 7

Olli woke up on his back, Sid tucked into his side and sleeping peacefully. The bad shoulder had dulled to a steadily humming ache, distracting but something he could work around. And who knew what two days off could do?

Something momentous lurked just out of Olli’s reach. Eyes still closed, he listened to Sid’s quiet breathing and waited for it to come to him. It was something good, maybe. Something big. All at once, memory bloomed: Sid kissing him. Sid’s lips brushing against his, ever so gently.

Olli considered that for a few moments. Then, carefully, he slid away from Sid and got out of bed. The alarm would go off in ten minutes anyway. Olli went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. While he waited for the water to get warm, he peered at his shoulder in the mirror. It was a little bit swollen. He lifted his arm cautiously and immediately regretted it. 

He moved carefully in the shower, keeping his shoulder as still as possible. He focused on the frothy suds of the shower gel, the steady patter of spray on his skin, the pleasant roughness of the rag between his toes. He let his head fill with the moment until there was no room for anything else.

Sid was just sitting up when Olli got out of the bathroom. “Hey,” Sid said, voice rough and morning-scratchy. 

Olli _still_ wanted to kiss him, for-real kissing they were both into, maybe followed by other things but maybe not, maybe just the careful and attentive exploration of each other’s mouths. He wanted it so much, and the hopeless impossibility of it made him want to cry. “Hi,” he managed, throat tight.

“How’s your shoulder?”

Olli nearly shrugged, but caught himself in time. “Okay.” Sid stood up and began to approach, like he wanted to inspect it for himself, and the thought of that was more than Olli could handle. “I’m hungry,” Olli announced, and slipped out of the room.

Sid caught up to Olli in the kitchen as Olli plated the scrambled eggs. Silence held all through breakfast, interrupted only by the clink of their forks. And that was good, Olli told himself, because he didn’t want to talk about it. There wasn’t anything to talk about. Besides, they had a practice and only two days to prepare for round one and the Blue Jackets, and Olli couldn’t afford to get distracted. Sid kept sneaking glances at Olli on the drive in when he thought Olli wasn’t looking, and that was distracting enough.

The trainers looked at Olli’s shoulder again. “I can play,” Olli said. 

“We’ll take another look tomorrow,” Stewie said, and wouldn’t be moved. 

Practice was intense, focused. Today guys hustled without being told. The locker room was loud afterwards. Beau jostled Olli’s good elbow, grinning widely, and Olli tried to return it. 

Sid snuck glances on the way home, too, but they seemed heavier, and Olli couldn’t bear that weight today. He looked determinedly out the window all the way to Sewickley. When they pulled into Sid’s garage and got out of the car, Olli said, “I’m going to take a nap.” He almost thought Sid would try to follow upstairs, but he didn’t, and so Olli pulled the blackout curtains shut and crawled into bed alone. His shoulder was hurting again, and he was so tired. 

He woke sometime later, dehydrated and with the beginning of a headache. And warm, because Sid _had_ followed him upstairs. As Olli stirred, Sid did, too. Olli could just see his outline as he sat up, a stray sliver of light glinting in his eye. “Sorry,” Sid said. “I didn’t mean to bother you, I just—I needed it. Sorry.”

Olli realized that some of the anxiety buzzing in him earlier had stilled. He’d needed it, too. “It’s okay.” 

“Listen,” Sid began, and Olli froze. “I’m really sorry about last night. I guess I freaked you out pretty bad.”

“It’s fine,” Olli said, by rote, even though Sid could surely smell the lie. “I just wish you didn’t. That’s all.”

There was a pause. “Right. Like I said, sorry. I thought—never mind.”

“You thought what?”

Softly, “I thought you’d like it. But I got it wrong. My fault.”

“I just—” Olli broke off. Sid didn’t try to interrupt. The room seemed to still, as though even the walls were straining to hear what Olli said next. “It just really sucks, you—” The words stuck in his throat for a moment. “—you kissing me because you feel sorry for me.”

“That’s—what?” There was a shuffling and a shift of weight, and then Sid’s bedside lamp flicked on. Olli blinked into the brightness while Sid settled on the edge of the bed, one knee bent and just grazing Olli’s elbow. “I didn’t kiss you because I _felt sorry for you_. What the fuck?”

Olli took a shaky breath and sat up, too. “Why, then?”

“Because I wanted to?”

Olli shook his head. “You don’t, though.” Sid made a noise, but Olli pushed on. “Maybe during heat you do—”

“Is that what this is about? My heat? I thought—” Sid’s hands fisted in the sheets. “You said it was okay for you.”

“It _was_ okay. It was fine.” Olli’s fingers closed over Sid’s. He thumbed across Sid’s knuckles until Sid’s grip loosened a little, and then Olli dared to say, very quietly, “I liked it. A lot. I liked that I could help you, and I liked—I liked having sex with you.” Spoken aloud, that felt like his final secret, the thing he’d been protecting them both from. “But _you_ didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.” Sid ducked low to catch Olli’s eye, to draw Olli out of his unseeing inspection of Sid’s fingernails. “Olli, that was the best heat I’ve had in years. For real,” he said, when Olli scoffed. “It was with someone I cared about.” Sid turned his hand over to squeeze Olli’s fingers. “Someone who cared about me.”

“But that was just heat. It’s not real.”

“It was pretty real.” There was an edge to Sid’s voice.

“No, it wasn’t. It’s just bodies, Sid. When you were in heat you wanted me to fuck you, but afterward you didn’t want anything to do with me. It was like nothing happened at all. You told me I did a _good job_ , like—” Olli pulled his hand away from Sid’s. He bowed his head. “—like I was a service alpha or something.”

“A service—are you serious?”

“The heat was fine,” Olli repeated. “But afterwards it was—it was hard.”

“Olli,” Sid said, insistent. “Come on, look at me.” Unwillingly, Olli lifted his gaze. It was a struggle not to immediately duck away again from Sid’s blazing stare. Sid took Olli’s hands between his; that tight spot in Olli’s chest eased a little despite everything, despite Sid trying to burn holes through Olli with his eyes. “Olli, you got it wrong, okay? And that’s my fault, I fucked up, but I didn’t want you to feel pressured. After my heat, I didn’t want you to feel like I expected anything.”

“Well,” Olli began. His throat was dry. “It worked.”

Sid laughed, disbelieving. “I thought that’s what you needed—for things to feel normal. Not awkward.”

“I just—” Olli broke off, overwhelmed. Sid squeezed Olli’s hands encouragingly. “It just felt like it should matter. What we did.”

“It did,” Sid said quietly. “It mattered a lot. You came to me when I asked, and you were really good to me.”

Olli looked down at his and Sid’s hands, twisted together between them. It would have been easy to agree, to say he understood, it was fine, they were fine. But Sid was trying so hard, and he deserved better than to have Olli lie to him. And Olli—

Olli deserved better, too. 

“Is that it?” Olli asked. “Is that the only reason it mattered?”

Olli’s blood was loud in his ears. Everything else was quiet. Everything was still except for the rise and fall of Sid’s bare chest. Finally, very softly, Sid said, “No. That’s not the only reason.” Afraid to hope, Olli lifted his eyes to meet Sid’s. He watched Sid’s approach, felt Sid’s hands gently framing his face. “I mean this, okay?” Sid said. “I promise.” He leaned in those last few inches, and he pressed his lips to Olli’s.

There were no sparks. The lights didn’t flicker. Sid’s lips were warm and soft, a little bit chapped from the perpetual dry cold of the rink, and his hands were cool against Olli’s skin. Sid was _right there_. He wasn’t in heat, and Olli wasn’t fuzzy with pain meds.

Cautiously Olli cupped Sid’s jaw, prickly with a couple of days’ growth, and tongued at Sid’s mouth. Sid opened up. He tasted—not great, really, of nap breath and stale Gatorade, and Olli did not give one single fuck. He took a kiss, and another, and another, and Sid palmed the back of Olli’s head and hummed like he wanted it. Like this was real.

They broke apart eventually. “I don’t know what happens next,” Olli said.

Sid slumped. That fierce attention turned away from Olli, inward. “I wasn’t really thinking that far ahead, sorry. But we might not have much longer, right?”

“Yeah.”

Sid bowed his head, so Olli could mostly see the top of his dark curly head and the clear line of his nose, still straight after all these years of hockey. “So probably we shouldn’t start anything.”

Olli wanted to protest that it wasn’t _fair_. “Right.”

Sid blew out a breath. “Okay. Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”

\--

Olli held himself in check all through dinner. Sid kept catching his eye and giving him quick smiles, like he was making sure Olli was still there.

Sid spent part of the evening on his phone, and Olli Facetimed with Harry. The looming playoffs, both NHL and AHL, overwhelmed all other topics. Olli maybe wasn’t fully engaged in the converations. Fifteen minutes in, Harry demanded, “Aren’t you excited? Your first NHL playoffs, man.”

“Of course,” Olli said, because there was no other acceptable answer. “I’m just tired. Banged up,” he added significantly, and Harry made sympathetic noises.

Olli crawled in bed with Sid, finally. He didn’t say anything but good night, and he didn’t touch Sid anywhere new. He let Sid slot himself into Olli’s space, and then Olli lay there in the dark for a long time, holding himself still, before he finally fell asleep.

\--

Olli woke first, long before their alarm. Sid was spooned up against his chest. In the morning stillness Olli listened to Sid breathe, quiet and easy. He splayed his hand over Sid’s hip, and he wanted. He wanted with his whole body, throat to balls. It built like pressure in his chest until he could barely catch his breath.

It wasn’t like heat. He was familiar enough now with the way heat burrowed deeper into his lungs with every breath, dragging him forward, irresistible. This, he could resist. He could get up now and get a shower and an early breakfast, or he could maybe will himself back to sleep. He could at least close his eyes and replay old games across the backs of his eyelids. He could do that. 

Sid was so close that Olli was probably stirring the hairs on the back of Sid’s neck every time he exhaled. He closed the half-inch gap and pressed a kiss to Sid’s skin. 

Sid stirred. Olli held very still. Sid shoved over onto his back with a grunt, and the hand Olli had been resting on Sid’s hip was now splayed across his belly. Another beat, and Sid croaked, “Olli?”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” 

Olli’s hand rose and fell with Sid’s breath. Pale light filtered in through Sid’s blinds. “What’s up?” Sid asked.

Olli closed his eyes for one last instant of indecision. Then he sat up and crawled onto Sid, knees bracketing Sid’s thighs and hands braced on either side of Sid’s head. 

Sid stared up into Olli’s eyes. “Olli—”

“We only have a few weeks,” Olli echoed. “I don’t want to waste them.” Olli paused to give Sid a chance to interrupt. He didn’t. His eyes were dark pools, and Olli could feel him starting to take an interest. “If this is all the time I have, then I want to _have_ it.”

“It’ll be harder—”

“It’s already going to _be_ hard, Sid. It’s going to be so fucking hard.”

Sid’s hand skated up Olli’s side, resting against his ribs. “Yeah, it is.”

“So if you don’t want to, then—then just say, but if you do—”

“I want to.”

For a moment Olli braced there, stock-still, and then he ducked down and found Sid’s mouth. Sid groaned against Olli, a sound that seemed to resonate all through Olli’s chest and down into the pit of his stomach. He pulled away for a moment, just to breathe. 

Sid reached up and cupped Olli’s face. “Hey,” Sid said. “Is it—are you—”

Olli kissed him again, stealing away the words. The kiss turned sloppy and wet. Sid groaned again, pushing up against Olli, grip tightening on Olli’s hip. Olli broke off and stared down at Sid’s lips. 

The lips curled into a smile. “Hey,” Sid said.

“Hi.” 

“Do you—what do you want?”

Olli shook his head. He had to look away from Sid, from his smiling eyes and kiss-swollen mouth. He tried to think, but each heaving breath brought in new scents, not quite familiar: something rich and musky, not heat but kin to it. It curled invitingly in Olli’s lungs. This was what Sid smelled like when he wanted it, when he could choose. This was what Sid smelled like when he wanted Olli.

And meanwhile Sid was stretched out beneath Olli, looking up into his face, waiting for Olli to make a move. “I don’t know,” Olli said, feeling suddenly, absurdly young. “Everything?” 

“Fuck, yeah,” Sid said. He dug his fingers into the meat of Olli’s ass, dragged Olli down on top of him, and rolled his hips up against Olli’s. Olli fucking squeaked in his effort not to come on the spot. “Yeah?” Sid said, grinning hugely and so pleased.

Olli ground down against Sid in retaliation, to hear him groan. Then he did it again because the friction felt so good. “Yeah,” Sid gasped. He gripped Olli’s ass with both hands, urging him on. “Come on.”

It didn’t take long. A few more rolls of Olli’s hips, and that heat building in his groin spilled out. He bowed his head and rode through it, and then he collapsed onto Sid’s chest and burrowed face-first against Sid’s neck. His heart pounded as the last aftershocks sizzled gently through him, and it took him a few moments to realize that underneath him, Sid was laughing.

Olli heaved up on his hands to look at Sid. “What?”

Sid stroked Olli’s side. “Hair trigger.”

Olli flushed hot as a furnace. “I’m fucking nineteen years old.”

“Hey, no. Hey.” Sid cupped Olli’s cheek and leaned up to kiss him, and when he dropped back again he didn’t look like he was making fun. He looked—happy, in a way Olli couldn’t remember seeing before, or not often. It was a disorienting realization, an uneasy sinking in his stomach like the drop in an express elevator.

He kissed Sid again to cover, and then again because he could. Because he’d been wanting to for fucking months and now he was allowed. “I really like kissing you,” he whispered against Sid’s mouth. It felt like a confession. 

Sid breathed deep and brushed his fingers over Olli’s hair. Low and rough, he said, “So do it again.”

Olli bent in close and kissed him again. With a moan, Sid rocked up against him, sending a scatter of belated sparks along Olli’s tender dick. Olli moved with Sid’s next thrust. It almost felt like too much, but it was worth it for Sid groaning beneath him. Olli shifted back a little, giving Sid his stomach to rut against, and he dropped his head and rolled with each thrust until Sid was coming with a hot gasp in Olli’s ear.

Olli rolled off of Sid and lay at his side while Sid recovered. After a while, Olli said, “I think I’m stuck to my boxers.”

Sid laughed. “Yeah, I gotta change. Shower. What time is it, anyway?”

Olli glanced at the window and hazarded a guess. “Almost time to get up.”

“Mmm.” 

“We have to do that again,” Olli said. He braced for Sid’s disagreement, for all the reasons they shouldn’t that Olli didn’t give a fuck about anymore.

Sid’s hand wandered into Olli’s space, bumped against his hip, and finally curled around Olli’s fingers. “Okay,” he said.

\--

They showered thoroughly—separately, although Olli wondered if that might be negotiable when they weren’t on a schedule. They’d left no marks on one another, and there was nothing new in their scents, already hopelessly mingled by months of sharing a bed. There was no outward sign at all of what they’d gotten up to that morning, and yet Olli walked into the locker room certain it was written all over his face.

But the playoffs were coming, and if Olli flushed a little more readily today and twitched a little more, everyone else was too busy to notice. 

Almost everyone. Jussi casually joined Olli at one of the cafeteria’s tiny round tables as Olli was working on his post-workout recovery drink. Jussi slid onto the stool and settled his elbows on the table, and Olli braced himself. “Playoffs,” Jussi said.

“Yeah,” Olli said.

Jussi cast him a keen glance. “Excited?”

Kuni had asked the same, leaning around Sid to interrogate Olli as the plane had lifted off from La Guardia. _The Olympics, Olli. Aren’t you excited?_ It felt like years ago. Olli reached back for the gut-deep thrill he’d felt then, the trembling in his belly. It wasn’t there. He couldn’t find it. “Of course,” he told Jussi.

Jussi didn’t push. He shifted the conversation to his kids, how they wanted to know when Olli was coming around again, and that’s how Olli found himself promising to come over for dinner the next evening they had free of team activities and night-before-the-game nerves.

The team met for dinner. In other guys’ voices Olli heard the buzz of nervous excitement. Beau’s eyes were shining. Bortz nudged Olli, rough in his enthusiasm, and Olli’s shoulder twinged, sharp and deep. He pressed his knee to Sid’s and found comfort there. 

Soon Olli would sit somewhere else at team dinners. The seat next to Sid would no longer automatically be his. Olli pressed a little harder and focused on the menu.

He and Sid went home finally. The friendly catcalls that came when they headed out the door had mostly stopped months ago, but now Olli almost expected to hear some, like the guys would look at him and Sid and just know. His face burned with fierce new heat. Sid noticed in the car, and his grin was a slow, self-satisfied thing. 

The ride home was torturously long. 

Olli followed Sid into the house. His heart beat too fast. He shoved his shoes off, hung up his coat. From down the hall Sid said, “I was thinking I’d pull up CBJ’s last game, maybe look some more at those set plays Dan showed us today. Sound good?”

“Oh,” Olli said blankly. “Okay.” Sex was for later, of course. Bedtime. He couldn’t just fuck Sid whenever he wanted. That was pure alpha bullshit, probably—

“Olli?” Sid stuck his head out from the kitchen. He squinted at Olli in the hall’s windowless dimness. “That was a joke.”

“Oh,” Olli repeated, more off-balance than before.

Sid swore under his breath. He stepped in close, and his knuckles brushed against the back of Olli’s hand before he laced their fingers together. “Sorry. I was just—I shouldn’t tease you. Fuck. Look, do you wanna go to bed? You can say no—”

“I want to,” Olli blurted, before Sid tried to talk them both out of it.

“Okay.” Sid’s smile was soft. Happy. 

Now that Olli felt like he knew where he was again, he leaned in to kiss that smile. Sid opened his mouth to Olli. He tasted kind of like Doritos and Gatorade. His hand gripped Olli’s hip hard enough to pinch a little. “Can I blow you?” Olli mumbled against Sid’s mouth.

Sid’s inhale was sharp. “Really?”

Olli drew back. “Yes?” Was this something else that was wrong? Harry had liked it, but maybe—

“Fuck yes, you can. But on the bed, eh?” Sid stepped back and tugged Olli toward the stairs. Olli thought he’d follow that tug anywhere—but that was a painful thought, like a sensitive tooth, and he put it out of his mind. 

They kissed some more just inside the bedroom door. It was different, kissing Sid when they were both upright. Olli had to lean down a little. Sid was square and solid, immovable, but his breath hitched when Olli stood his full height and pressed into Sid’s space. 

Sid pulled away finally. He reached for his belt buckle, but Olli covered Sid’s hands with his own, and Sid stilled. “Can I?” Olli asked.

“Yeah,” Sid said shakily.

Olli had never gotten to do this before: undress Sid, peel back each layer, so that Sid himself slowly emerged. Sid twitched as Olli pulled his undershirt over his head—almost a tremble, but that couldn’t be right. Finally Sid stood pink and bare in front of Olli. He was already half-hard, dick poking out from a thicket of dark, wiry curls. Olli curled his fingers loosely around it, and Sid shivered. “Well?” Olli said. “You said you wanted to do it on the bed.”

Sid laughed under his breath. “Yeah.” He sat on the bed and scooted back until he was braced against the headboard, and then he bent his knees and spread his legs. The sight punched all Olli’s breath out of him. Sid willing and waiting, grinning fondly up at him: even Olli’s deepest, most primal alpha instincts were flummoxed.

“Well, come on,” Sid said, a teasing light in his eyes.

Olli crawled up onto the bed. Tucking his knees under him, he leaned forward on his elbows until he was level with Sid’s dick. It was flushed and dark. Olli wanted to trace each vein with his tongue.

“It’s not really like yours,” Sid said. “It’s okay if—” 

Olli licked a stripe up the side. Sid swore at the ceiling.

Some late-afternoon light filtered in through the curtains, but the room was still dim and close. The world beyond it slipped away. There was only Sid heavy and hot in Olli’s mouth, Sid’s grunts above him, Sid’s knees trembling near Olli’s ears. There was a wrinkle in the sheet under Olli’s right elbow and pre-come beginning to leak onto his tongue. His shoulder ached a little.

Sid’s grunts grew more strained. “Olli—” 

Olli just had time to brace himself before Sid flooded his mouth, hot and bitter. After Olli had swallowed and Sid had ridden out the aftershocks, Sid’s hand landed on Olli’s head. “Shit, Olli.”

Something lodged in Olli’s throat, a glowing-hot coal of emotion he couldn’t understand or swallow away or ignore. He could only be still and let it sear him through. He pressed his cheek to Sid’s thigh, and after a moment Sid began to stroke Olli’s hair.

Gradually the emotion cooled until Olli felt like he could sit up and face Sid again.

“Okay?” Sid asked.

“Yeah.” 

Sid still looked concerned. Olli could just make out his eyes, dark and beautiful. _Beautiful_ : another secret Olli had been keeping from himself. He kneewalked awkwardly in, braced himself on the headboard with one hand, and leaned in to kiss Sid’s mouth. One kiss, two, and then he rested his forehead against Sid’s and just breathed.

“Thanks, Olli,” Sid said softly.

“You’re welcome,” Olli said, startling himself with the rasp in his throat. 

It must have shown on his face. Sid laughed gently. “Hey, come on, how about you? How are you still wearing all these clothes, holy shit.”

It was an awkward fumble to get Olli out of his polo shirt and jeans, during the course of which he realized that he was pretty hard. “Sucking me off does it for you, eh?” Sid said fondly. “This okay?” he asked, gripping Olli loosely. Olli jerked a little in his hand.

“Yeah,” Olli breathed. Fuck, he was so hard.

He made more of a mess than Sid did. His knot swelled as he got close, and when he came, he spurted all over Sid’s hand and Sid’s thigh. Flecks of white spattered Sid’s chest. As Olli came back to himself, breath still heaving, he was torn between embarrassment and a visceral, gut-deep pride.

“Fuck,” Sid said, but he was laughing. It seemed like he was also a little flushed, but maybe that was Olli’s imagination. There wasn’t a lot of light to see by. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

Olli sort of expected a wash cloth, but instead he heard the shower turn on. Two minutes later, Sid returned and stretched out on the bed, and he tugged Olli down next to him. He was still damp. He hadn’t washed very thoroughly: the dirty-sock scent of old arousal still clung to his skin.

“I usually jerk off in the shower,” Olli blurted.

After a beat, Sid said soberly, “Saves the sheets.”

“Coin laundry at the hotel,” Olli reminded him, and Sid laughed. Olli rolled onto his side and splayed his fingers across Sid’s chest. Sid’s humor was a gentle quake against his palm. Olli’s breath was finally evening out. 

“We should, like, get dinner,” Sid said.

“Mm,” Olli agreed. The moment stretched out, syrupy and slow in the late afternoon. 

Sid’s fingers closed around Olli’s. “I’m still not sure this was a good idea.”

“Do you want to stop?” Olli asked. He felt oddly unconcerned about the answer. He could already taste it in his mouth, could hear it in Sid’s even breath. He knew what it would be.

Sid gripped Olli’s fingers a little tighter. “No.”

\--

They won game one against CBJ, four goals to three. Olli and Sid assisted on a goal each. After media and showers, Olli found Sid in the trainers’ room, slowly rotating his wrist for Stewie. Olli sidled up next to the exam table. Sid grimaced at him.

“Just keep icing it,” was Stewie’s eventual conclusion. “And how about you, Olli? How’s the shoulder?”

The shoulder ached, pain simmering deep in the joint. But it was bearable, and this was the playoffs. “It’s okay for now,” Olli said. 

Stewie looked at it anyway, humming discouragingly, but he didn’t suggest Olli sit the next game out. “Keep me updated,” was all Stewie said.

At home, Sid sat Olli on the couch in front of the TV and got them both ice packs. They wound down with their shoulders pressed together, watching the NHL highlights. When Olli was near to nodding off and his pants leg was wet with condensate from the ice pack, Sid turned off the TV. Olli sat up. It was a struggle; upstairs seemed very far away. It took him a while to notice how still Sid was sitting. He turned and found Sid looking at him, expression soft.

Olli kissed him, of course. He bent in close and caught Sid’s mouth.

“We should go to bed,” Sid said, after a moment.

“Mm.”

Sid laughed softly. At Olli, probably, but that was okay. As long as Sid kept letting Olli kiss him like that, he could laugh all he wanted. “Hey, Olli,” Sid said. He thumbed along Olli’s jaw. “You won your first playoff game.”

“Fifteen to go,” Olli said.

\--

That was the CBJ series: scores of four to three, more winning than losing, ice and kissing after, sometimes hand jobs or rubbing off on one another. Sid blew Olli one off-day afternoon, eyes sparkling up at Olli while his mouth stretched wide around Olli’s dick. It went straight to number one on Olli’s list of all-time best sex.

They won game six in Columbus to take the series. “Just like that, boys!” Bortz yelled as they stomped down the tunnel afterward. “Three more series just like that!”

Sid was quiet on the bus ride back to the hotel, and Olli caught his mood, though everyone around them was chattering and chirping, jubilant. A few times Olli caught Sid flexing his wrist. “More ice when we get back,” Olli said. Sid grimaced. 

But when they got to the hotel, Marty and Nisky and Suttsy made noises about going out to celebrate Geno’s hat trick. Sid declined at first. “Come on, captain,” Marty said. “We’re not flying out until late tomorrow.”

“He don’t want come,” Geno said. “He pissed _he_ don’t get hat trick. He want to go sulk in room.”

Sid rolled his eyes and said, “I fucking do not,” which was basically surrender. He turned to Olli and said, “Do you mind? Or if you want to go on up, I’ll be up in a while, eh?”

“I don’t mind,” Olli said. 

Someone knew about a bar and grill a few blocks from the hotel. By one in the morning, the air in Columbus had cooled, but it was still humid and heavy, and Olli was glad of his jacket. Sid had lapsed into silence again. They kept close enough to bump elbows every so often, and every time it happened Olli felt a possessive little burst of happiness. His fingers itched to take Sid’s hand.

Olli didn’t notice Beau and Bortz cutting him away from the others until they already had him surrounded on one side of the corner booth, with Sid on the other. “Hi,” Beau said, grinning obnoxiously wide. “So Bortz and I need you to settle a bet for us.”

“Okay,” Olli said warily.

“Bortz swears up and down you and Sid are fucking now.”

Olli flinched and looked around, but everybody else was caught up in their own conversations. Like a rescuing angel, the waitress appeared at his elbow. Olli ordered a Shirley Temple, because he was too rattled to try and charm her into selling him a beer. “Oh my god, Olli,” Beau said, momentarily diverted. 

Anyway, Olli kind of sucked at charm even on good days. “I like them. I like the cherry.” 

Bortz loudly cleared his throat. “So, about this bet.”

“Right,” Beau said. “There’s no way you guys are. I’d know.” He tapped his nose.

“I’m not settling your stupid bet,” Olli said, but he could tell by the heat in his cheeks it was way too late.

“Oh my god,” Beau said again, sounding awed.

“I’m not talking about this. It’s _none of your business_.”

Beau looked ready to argue this, but then there was a muffled thump under the table, and he winced. “I win,” Bortz said. “Beau owes me fifty bucks, and he’s going to shut up now and sneak you part of his beer.”

“I am not,” Beau said. The following argument distracted them until the drinks and fried cheese sticks arrived.

“But seriously, though,” Beau said, through a beer foam mustache. “Olli, really?”

Olli shrugged. “It’s all just—temporary. So.” 

Beau seemed to have gotten over his affront at Olli costing him fifty bucks. He looked Olli over frankly, openly. “That’s rough, dude.”

“Yeah,” Bortz said.

“I mean, it’s not a surprise,” Olli said. 

“But it’s still—isn’t it hard?” Beau said. “I haven’t ever bonded, obviously, but it seems like—I mean, I know how I feel when there’s—you know, when I’m interested in someone. Like, alpha instincts and shit.”

“Sex doesn’t mean it’s serious,” Olli said, which felt significantly less relevant once the words were actually out of his mouth.

“Sure,” Beau said slowly, but he didn’t press any further.

The conversation left Olli feeling off-balance and contrary. On the walk back to the hotel, he fell in with Sid in the rear of the group. Maybe Sid sniffed something on Olli, because he said, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Olli said. Defiantly he pulled his hand out of his pocket and tucked his fingers around Sid’s. He heard Sid’s sharp inhale, and Olli’s heart pounded with alarm at his own daring. This was a terrible idea: he and Sid had gotten away with just low-key chirping from the team for as long as they had because everyone knew this wasn’t real. They definitely didn’t need to confuse anyone on that point. 

But Sid only stepped a little closer to Olli on the next stride and tightened his grip, and they walked the whole distance to the hotel that way, hand in hand. It was only as they reached the revolving door that Sid let go. Olli walked into the lobby feeling a little lightheaded. 

The feelings-induced vertigo had faded by the time he and Sid reached their floor. Sid stared at the chrome wall, withdrawn, and Olli caught the hint of something a little sour.

Inside their room, door shut, Olli said, “Are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Sid said, almost absently, but Olli had been living with Sid nearly twenty-four hours a day for three months now. He knew his tells—or some of them, anyway.

He kicked off his shoes, sat on the bed, and waited for Sid to come out of the bathroom. When he did, Olli asked, “What’s wrong?” That was a better question. Less wiggle room.

“It’s nothing,” Sid said, stripping out of his jeans. 

Olli got to touch that ass these days, but now was not the time to get distracted. “Sid,” he said, and hoped it would be enough. If Sid really wanted to blow him off, Olli certainly couldn’t stop him. Olli had months of evidence to prove it.

There was a long pause, during which maybe Sid weighed all those same considerations, and then he slumped next to Olli on the bed, still in his polo shirt and briefs and socks. He hunched a little, his wrist cradled awkwardly in his lap. He breathed out, long and slow. “I’m tired,” he said finally.

“We didn’t have to go,” Olli said.

Sid shook his head. “It’s just—it’s been a long season, you know?”

“Yeah.”

Sid huffed a laugh. “Longer for you than anyone, right? Your first NHL season. Eighty-two games.”

“Almost,” Olli said. Handful of scratches notwithstanding.

Softly, almost to himself, Sid said, “I don’t know if we can make it.”

Olli felt a chill. “What?”

“I mean, we haven’t _made it_ since oh-nine. But this next series.” Sid shook his head. “We’re tired. You’ve got your shoulder, there’s my wrist. Tanger just came back from a stroke, and Scuds still isn’t right. Duper’s out for the long haul, and just—I don’t know if I can pull us through.”

Olli’s instinct was to protest that it wasn’t Sid’s job to _pull them through_. Even Sid couldn’t do everything. But Olli had been on the receiving end of that kind of counsel plenty of times over the last few months, and he’d never found it very convincing. He reached across Sid’s lap to lace his fingers through those of Sid’s uninjured hand. “It’s okay,” he said.

“It’s not. I can’t—I want to make all this worth it.” Sid saw Olli’s blank look and gestured between them. “The bond, everything—it was for the Cup, right? But—”

Olli pressed a kiss to the side of Sid’s head, just forward of his ear. Sid inhaled sharply. Olli kissed Sid’s peach-fuzz cheek and finally his mouth. With the pressure of his lips and tongue Olli tried to say what he didn’t have the words for. 

Sid opened to him, and Olli shifted on the bed so he could cup the back of Sid’s neck. Sid tasted of beer and the grease from the fried cheese sticks. He tasted salty and warm and _good_ , and Olli couldn’t have him forever but he could have him now, right this minute. 

Sid pressed closer, hand skating up Olli’s ribs, under his t-shirt. Olli lifted his arms in invitation, and Sid took it. He tugged Olli’s shirt over his head and pulled him in. His hands blazed trails across Olli’s skin, up Olli’s spine and along his shoulder blades. Olli buzzed with heat everywhere Sid touched. 

Sid was panting a little now between kisses. Olli groped between them and found Sid hard and waiting and ready. “Up,” Olli said. “Onto the bed.” He gave Sid a moment to scramble up and lie back. Sid’s gaze was hot on Olli; Olli felt it like a physical thing. He crawled up onto Sid, steering carefully clear of Sid’s wrist, and kissed him again. 

“Ouch,” Sid said into Olli’s mouth. Olli froze. “Pants.”

Grumbling in frustration, Olli rolled off of Sid so he could fumble open the catch and shove them off his legs. When he turned back, there was Sid stretched out on the wildly floral comforter, still in his socks and polo shirt. Olli couldn’t help a grin.

“What?” Sid demanded, pushing up on his elbows.

Olli crawled onto him again. “You’re really hot.”

Sid laughed. “You’re not so bad yourself.” His hands came to rest high on Olli’s ass. Olli pushed back against them, instinctive, and Sid began to knead the flesh with his fingers. It felt—really good.

“Do you—what do you want?” Olli gasped.

Sid looked into Olli’s eyes for a long moment, surely longer than he needed to determine what sex he was in the mood for tonight. “Just move with me,” he said finally. He rolled his hips up invitingly against Olli’s.

They were good at this, now. Olli knew how to settle into the spaces Sid’s body left behind, how to give Sid pressure to grind up against. How to chase Sid’s hips back down, looking for that delicious friction. Sid liked to hold onto Olli’s waist, and as Sid got close, he threw his head back, baring his throat and his Adam’s apple. Olli had never bitten it—they were still aiming for plausible deniability, after all—but god, he wanted to.

Olli lay on Sid for a little while afterwards, just feeling Sid’s breath gradually slow beneath him. “We should clean off,” Olli said finally. “And you should take off your shirt.”

Sid snorted a laugh too sleepy to have any bite in it. Olli rolled off him, and Sid stood. He caught Olli’s fingers. “Come with me,” he said.

So they squeezed together into the hotel shower. Olli bashed his elbow against the wall twice while trying to avoid jostling Sid’s wrist, and he stepped on Sid’s foot another time. Sid laughed at him. When they were both clean, Sid pressed Olli into the shower wall and kissed him again, slow and sleepy and warm.

It was much too late when they finally stumbled into bed. Olli was warm from the shower, a little buzzed from the kissing but too exhausted to do anything about it. Sid sprawled out flat on his back, and Olli curled towards him, not quite touching. He draped a hand over Sid’s belly.

Under Olli’s palm, Sid sighed out, long and slow. His strong grip looped around Olli’s fingers. “Thanks,” he said.

Olli was already more than half-asleep; it took him a moment to find the words he wanted. “Thanks for telling me,” he said.

\--

Olli woke up the next morning, and gradually the realization stole over him: this was it. As soon as their postseason was over, he and Sid were over, too. 

Sid dozed next to him, a bright strip of sunlight from the window crawled slowly across the wall, and Olli finally tried to look at the idea head-on: not waking up next to Sid anymore. Not eating breakfast with him or sitting pressed up against him on flights or fucking him. Not kissing him. Having no claim on him at all—not that Olli did now, really, but neither his body nor his heart agreed.

He was still trying to process what this meant, what it could possibly look like, when Sid curled a hand around Olli’s arm. “Stop,” Sid slurred. He tugged at Olli until Olli slid a couple of inches closer. Olli closed his eyes and let himself drift slowly back to sleep.

\--

The next night, a dozen guys or more crowded into Sid’s entertainment room to watch the Rangers force a game seven against the Flyers. Feelings were mixed. “I want the fucking orange bastards to get through so we can fucking destroy them.”

“ _I_ want the Rags to crush them in game seven so we don’t have to.”

“I want to play fucking anyone except the Flyers,” Tanger said darkly, with a glance over Flower’s way. Flower was downing the last of his beer and pointedly not entering the discussion.

“You mean like Boston?”

Tanger grimaced and waggled his hand.

In any case, it gave the Pens a few more days of rest. Sid and Olli spent an afternoon marathoning _Friends_ , which Olli had only seen isolated episodes of. The characters tried to maneuver a couch up a stairwell, and Sid laughed until he cried. “Come on, it’s funny,” he said, after he’d recovered a little. His lashes were clumped together, still damp.

“It’s pretty funny,” Olli agreed, but Sid’s eyes disappearing when he smiled, the corners crinkling—that was even better. 

Olli had it pretty bad. He could admit that to himself now. He was going to hurt a lot, soon. He could see it coming like a heavy hit, but for now he was suspended in this painless, timeless instant before impact. Olli tried to notice every moment of it: every ride to the rink together, every casual glance from Sid to confirm with Olli before he made plans for them both. He tried not to cling or get in Sid’s way, but he didn’t let anybody corner him away from Sid at team dinners anymore. He maybe loomed at Tanger a little one night when Tanger tried.

“Easy, tiger,” Tanger said, chuckling, but he didn’t say another word about Sid coming down to the Frenchie end of the table.

“Okay?” Sid whispered to Olli, once they were all seated.

Olli pressed his knee against Sid’s. “Yeah.”

\--


	8. Chapter 8

They lost game one against New York, a heartbreaker in OT. Sid was on the ice for all three goals against, and he lost considerably more faceoffs than he won. After it was all over, media and showers, Olli found Sid by himself in the trainers’ room. Sid was staring at his wrist, bundled in ice. Olli pressed in close, skin-to-skin, but there was only so much the bond could do for actual injuries. “I’ll drive us home,” he said finally. Sid nodded wordlessly. His face was tense with pain.

In game two, just before the first intermission, Olli was in the corner about to pass the puck up the boards when Girardi came flying in, full-throttle. Olli lost his footing a little, and he went into the glass at awkward angle. He knew before he’d even made contact that it was going to be bad. 

His shoulder fucking _hurt_. That was the first thing. It exploded in pain, like a big firework, so bright and fierce Olli thought he could see the colors. He was on the ice, which was the second, trivial thing. Someone—Nisky—helped Olli up onto his skates and skated him to the bench. Olli stomped down the tunnel in a fog, barely aware of Stewie following behind.

“Let’s get a look at you, kid,” Stewie said. 

Olli breathed deep, struggling to unstiffen long enough to let Stewie get him out of his sweater and shoulder pads and base layer. By the time his shoulder was bare, Olli realized he was crying. “I need to play,” Olli said, even though the prospect of anyone giving his shoulder so much as a gentle squeeze made him want to pass out. 

“We’ll get you there,” Stewie promised. “Give you a shot for now, get you back on the ice.”

Olli couldn’t feel relief yet. He felt too much of everything else.

“Olli?” Sid called from down the hall.

“Here,” Olli said, unnecessarily. He was in the trainers’ room that had a light on. He wasn’t hard to find.

“Olli,” Sid repeated, appearing in the doorway, gloves tucked under his arm. The period must have been over. “Fucking god.” He strode up to Olli and stopped, just beyond touching distance. “Do you—should I—?”

Olli reached out with the uninjured arm, and Sid took his hand. Instantly the pain—didn’t decrease, exactly, but receded so that it wasn’t quite so bright and sharp at the forefront of Olli’s mind. 

“Hey,” Sid said, cupping Olli’s jaw and wiping at Olli’s cheek with his thumb.

With Sid in the foreground and pain threatening in the background, Olli barely noticed the tell-tale pinch of the needle. Almost immediately, blessed numbness began to creep along his shoulder. Slowly Olli slumped as the pain he’d been bracing against began to fade. He took a deep breath that felt natural instead of a deliberate act, then another. It occurred to him that he really wasn’t breathing through his nose, that it was congested and full of snot. “I think that was a bad one,” he said.

“Looked like,” Sid said. He looked tense, too, now that Olli had the time to notice.

“Can I go?” Olli asked Stewie. 

Stewie made a face. “I’d rather keep you around a little longer.”

Olli was okay with not jarring his shoulder just yet. But, “You need to go,” he told Sid. “For intermission. You have to go be captain.”

“Fuck,” Sid said. He gave Olli a long, hard look. Before Olli could really process what was happening, Sid ducked in and kissed him on the mouth—not lingering, but firm and unmistakable. Sid retreated, and Olli stared at him. “I have to—” Sid thumbed towards the door. Olli nodded, still shell-shocked, and watched him go.

Olli’s face was hot like an oven coil. He waited for Stewie to disapprove, but Stewie helped Olli put all his gear back on and never said a word.

\--

Olli went out again when the second period began. He was a little fuzzy-headed with masked pain, but adrenaline brought some approximation of clarity. He survived the period, somehow, and the one after that. At the end the Pens had three goals and the Rangers had none, and that was the point, wasn’t it?

This time, in the post-game aftermath, Stewie made noises about Olli sitting the next game. Olli didn’t really listen to him. He wanted painkillers and sleep. And Sid.

Sid came to collect Olli eventually. He didn’t kiss Olli this time, just squeezed his uninjured shoulder and kept near to hand on the endless trek out to the car. When they pulled out of the parking garage, Sid muttered, “I want this fucking season to be over.”

“No,” Olli said, before he even had time to think. “What?”

Sid gave Olli’s shoulder a meaningful glance and turned his attention back to the street. He shook his head and pressed his lips together.

“No,” Olli repeated, but the pills were kicking in in earnest now, and he couldn’t muster any more argument than that. The word hung in the air between them all the way home—or until Olli drifted off, anyway.

\--

Olli remembered the conversation the next morning, his fork halfway to his mouth. He paused, and Sid gave him a funny look. “Now you put in the food in,” Sid said.

“Fuck off,” Olli said, and stuck the bite in his mouth. Sid laughed at him and returned to the blender. His shirt this morning was loose, the fabric worn thin—stretched out by summer bulk and now hanging off Sid’s lean, end-of-season body. 

Olli stood up before he really knew what he was doing. He cornered Sid at the counter. “Hey,” Sid said.

“Hey.” Olli pressed himself against Sid’s back and pulled Sid in with his one good arm.

“We have practice,” Sid said. His words were a gentle vibration in Olli’s chest.

Olli ignored him. He closed his eyes, bent his nose to Sid’s head, and breathed him in, fully and deeply like he hadn’t had to think about doing for a long time. He inhaled the natural oils in Sid’s hair and the remaining hints of last night’s shampoo, the gentle underlying muskiness that was Sid himself. He took in long gulps of Sid, again and again until he was light-headed, and then he hid his face in Sid’s hair. 

“Olli?” Sid stroked Olli’s arm.

Olli stepped back and tried heroically and unsuccessfully not sniffle.

“Olli,” Sid repeated. He twisted around and peered up into Olli’s eyes. “Is it your shoulder? We can—”

“It’s not my shoulder,” Olli said. His voice sounded like gravel. Well, his throat also felt like gravel, so.

“Then—”

“I don’t want the season to be over.” Olli would have thought the anxious thrill of making confessions to Sid would have worn off by now, but no. He met Sid’s eyes. For once, Sid had nothing to say; he stared back with his mouth hanging open. Olli took a deep breath. “I don’t know what it’s going to be like, living without you.”

“I know,” Sid. He threaded his fingers through Olli’s. “But you did it before, right?” He essayed a thin, unconvincing smile.

“I don’t remember it,” Olli said. It was the simple truth. 

Sid’s face fell, and Olli felt a pang in that instinctual, hindbrain place that wanted to take care of Sid more than it wanted anything else in the world. Sid was Olli’s bonded, his omega mate, and Olli should never, ever give him cause to be sad.

Sid pulled his hand away. For a moment it hovered in the air, indecisive, before he tucked it into his pocket. His gaze fixed on the kitchen floor, he said, “We shouldn’t have. Any of this, we shouldn’t—we should have broken it as soon as we got back from Sochi.”

The hairs rose on the back of Olli’s neck, like an icy draft had passed through him.

Sid’s mouth twisted bitterly. “Or as soon as it happened, that would have better probably, but I really fucking needed another medal.” 

“I did, too,” Olli said. “Maybe I won’t ever get to play for another one.”

That gave Sid pause. “Okay, but after—”

“Never mind. I don’t want to talk about it.” Olli retreated to his uneaten breakfast. Sid left him alone after that, a small mercy.

\--

They flew to New York that afternoon and ate dinner that night with the team. Sid rested his hand on his own thigh between ordering and food, and Olli wanted to cover it with his own. He didn’t.

They brushed their teeth that night over inset sinks side-by-side, and they crawled in together under hotel sheets. Olli lay in the dark listening to Sid breathe and trying to count how many nights like this they might have left if they went all the way, if every series went seven games. 

Olli was tired the next morning, and his shoulder ached. He took a maintenance day. While the other guys practiced, he sat in the trainers’ room adjacent to the visitor lockers and endured Stewie. Stewie prodded at the joint and shifted Olli into positions that hurt more.

The team had a couple of hours free between tape and dinner. “Don’t get too wild,” Bylsma warned mildly.

“I want to go to the hotel,” Olli told Sid. “Take a nap.” After Stewie’s attentions, pain lurked at the edges of Olli’s consciousness, white and hot, waiting. 

“Sure,” Sid said, and it was only as they were walking out the door together that Olli realized Sid was coming with him. 

“I’ve been here lots of times now,” Olli said. “I can walk to the hotel by myself.”

“A nap sounds good,” Sid said, and Olli let it go.

\--

The Pens won game three. Then they won game four. They flew back to Pittsburgh up three games to one, that fourth all-important win just inches from their grasp.

Olli was on pain pills a lot. He spent his nights touching every part of Sid he could reach, because it helped a little. Sid didn’t say any more about wanting the bond to be over. And then somehow the Rags won two in a row, and the Pens were flying home for a game seven. Sid gripped Olli’s hand the whole short ride, and the smell of him was so sharp and bitter Olli thought surely it must be obvious to every A and O on the plane.

In the terminal, on their way out to the parking garage, Sid said, “Do you think you can handle driving home?”

“I’m not _broken_ ,” Olli said, even though sometimes there was a grinding in his shoulder that couldn’t be anything but bone on bone.

Sid nodded. “Good. I gotta—I’ll be home in a bit, okay?”

“Okay?” Sid’s head was down as he put one foot in front of the other. It felt deliberate, like he was shying away from Olli’s inevitable questions. Olli fought instinct and kept his hands to himself. “Sid?”

Sid met his gaze. He looked exhausted. They were all tired, all banged up. Sid carried the weight of the team more than any of them, and still Olli was shocked. He saw Sid most of every day; how could he have missed the desperate weariness in Sid’s eyes? “I’m sorry,” Sid said. “I know your shoulder’s hurting, but I need—” He stopped, as though Olli could surely follow his thought to the end.

Olli didn’t have a clue. “Need what?”

Sid slumped. Right there in the terminal with a duffel over one shoulder and the other hand resting on the handle of his rolling suitcase, he collapsed like all his strings were cut except the one holding his torso upright. “Just a couple of hours. Some time—away.”

“Okay,” Olli said. He still didn’t understand, but that was okay, he decided. Sid needed this, and that was all Olli needed to know. “So were you going to give me the car key, or…”

“Smartass,” Sid said lips thinning in a weak but genuine smile. Sid fished around in his pockets until he found his keys, and he passed them on to Olli.

Olli went home to take a nap in Sid’s empty bed and a shower to wash the road staleness off. Then he went to Jussi’s and played with the kids and ate the fried potatoes and eggs Salla served for dinner. It’d been a few weeks since he’d fit this in—what with all the sex he’d been having instead—and it was good, being reminded of home, of how there were other people Olli liked to spend time with, too. It was good to remember that Sid was not the only person in the entire world. Olli would have to get used to it, sooner or later.

That thought made him feel ill, so he put it away and focused on convincing Jaana to help him build a tower of blocks when obviously the really fun thing to do was to knock them down as soon as Olli got it more than three blocks high.

When he got home the second time, Sid was already there, watching the Habs-Bruins game in the entertainment room. The room was dark, washed only with the blue-white light of the TV, but even so Olli noted with alarm that Sid’s eyes were red-rimmed. Olli settled in next to Sid. He felt Sid relax first, a slow release of tension like a long exhale, and then it rolled slowly through Olli, too: that syrupy contentment. He buried his face in Sid’s neck. After a moment Olli rolled his head around to look at the screen. “Okay?” he said.

Sid squeezed Olli’s thigh. “Yeah. You have a good time with Juice?”

“Yeah. You?”

“I had dinner with Flower. It was good. I needed it, you know?”

“Good,” Olli said firmly. He wasn’t going to wonder or worry. He was _not_.

At the next TV timeout, Sid lowered the volume. “You know there’s some stuff we need to talk about, pretty soon.”

Olli’s pulse picked up. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I don’t know if we should wait until the season’s over, or—”

“That could be a long time from now,” Olli pointed out.

“Could be,” Sid agreed.

Olli pressed deeper into Sid’s side. He took a deep breath, trying to let Sid’s scent distract him and slow his hammering heart. “Maybe we should just talk about it.” It was a bad time; he knew it even as he said the words. They had a game seven in two days. They had bigger problems.

Sid brushed his thumb back and forth over Olli’s knee, tickling the hairs. He was silent in that intent way that meant he was focused very hard on something. Finally he pulled his hand back into his lap, and he said, “You want to keep it, don’t you.”

“Yeah,” Olli said quietly. 

Sid sighed heavily and let his head fall back against the sofa, eyes to the ceiling. “Fuck.”

“But—but you don’t.” Olli had cherished some hope, maybe. Foolish, probably childish hope, but he’d kept it, deep down and secret. Olli shifted away so that he could look at Sid’s face. Slowly Sid shook his head. There were tears building in Olli’s throat and eyes, stupid tears. “Um. Was that all? I—”

“It’s not because of you,” Sid said. The words pinned Olli in place, struck dumb and unable to move. Sid sat up, and earnestness practically poured out of his eyes. “You get that, right?”

“Okay?” Olli tried.

“Fuck,” Sid spit, sharp and sudden. Olli flinched, and Sid saw it. He slumped, anger collapsing out of him as quickly as it’d come. “This is why—Olli, I swear, it’s not you. It’s not because—because I don’t—”

“It isn’t?” Olli couldn’t really see what else it could be. “I like living with you. Going to bed with you at night. Making breakfast, driving in to the rink together. Watching games on your couch, and kissing you, and all that shit. Isn’t that what—” The words were stuck behind his teeth. They wouldn’t come. “Isn’t that what it’s about? Being in a—in a relationship?” He’d never called it that before, not even in his own head.

Sid nodded, eyes on the coffee table. “I think so. Yeah.”

“But you don’t feel that way,” Olli said. “Not about me.”

“That’s _not it_.”

“It’s because you think I’m too young.” For a bond, for Sid—who knew? And what did it matter? Humiliation burned in Olli’s chest and across his skin.

“No!” Sid exclaimed. “I mean, that’s not the only reason. Not everything is about that, Olli.”

“Then why?” Olli pleaded. He’d wanted to guess himself so he could brace for the words before they came out of Sid’s mouth, but he was out of ideas, and he could only hold still and wait.

For a long pause, nothing came. Sid bent over his knees, staring at his folded hands, and said nothing. “It was, you know—it was pretty rough, when we got bonded. Wasn’t it?” He turned a pleading glance on Olli.

The terrible, miserable bonding heat in that department store seemed an age ago. So much had happened since: the Olympics, Sid’s injury, Sid’s next heat, Olli’s injury, the playoffs. A near-eternity stretched between then and now, full of Sid. But in a dim recess of Olli’s mind, Olli realized he was still there, standing in the harsh, stripped-bare utility of that quiet room, seeing Sid lying on that bed.

“Yeah,” Olli said finally. “Yeah, it was.”

“I put you through that,” Sid said, so quietly he might have been talking to himself.

“ _You_ didn’t,” Olli protested.

“Fine. My body did, then.”

“I’m the one who had a choice,” Olli said.

Sid shrugged. “You didn’t know what it meant, though.”

Olli opened his mouth to dispute this, too, but Sid eyed him, one eyebrow raised. Olli deflated. “No,” he admitted.

“If you’d had any idea—there’s no way you would have volunteered if you’d known how bad it was going to be.”

“Maybe not.” Olli recalled the dawning horror of recognizing Sid and how quickly red-blooded hormonal lust had overwhelmed it; those first hours after he’d woken up at the heat spa, chafed everywhere and aching; the night in Sochi when he’d lost control and scared Sid out of his mind. The night he found Sid puking and miserable in their Sochi bathroom. “Maybe not, but it hasn’t just been bad stuff, right? Maybe if I’d known how good it could be, I would have done it anyway.” Olli flushed hot, though it seemed he should have been past being embarrassed by his feelings by now.

But Sid was shaking his head. “You wouldn’t have just—just picked this life for both of us. Not without asking me.”

Olli turned away, so Sid couldn’t see his face. “I don’t know about that.”

“You wouldn’t. I know you. You wouldn’t do that.” Sid sounded so confident, so full of faith. “And I wouldn’t do that to you, either. I can’t do it _now_. I can’t just—go on.” He chuckled humorlessly. “Maybe it’s my O nature, but I can’t handle being responsible for you like that, you know? For the whole rest of your life?”

“ _I’m_ responsible for me,” Olli said.

“Did you ever want me, before?” Sid asked.

“What?”

“Before—this, in the first half of the season, were you ever interested in me?”

“You were the _captain_ ,” Olli said, horrified and indignant. “I wouldn’t even think about that. And anyway, Kuni threatened to, like, cut my dick off.”

Sid’s eyebrows rose sky-high, but he elected to leave that particular comment alone. “That’s what I mean. What if this is all just the bond?” He gestured between them. “What if you don’t even like me?”

Olli’s vision blurred; angrily he blinked the tears away. “That’s not fair. That’s not— _fuck_ you.” Stricken, Sid reached for Olli, but Olli twisted away before Sid could make that all-important skin-on-skin contact. “You don’t want to be responsible for me, so you just—decided this? Without me?”

Sid’s hand dropped, then his shoulders, then his eyes. “I—yeah. I guess.”

Olli’s heart thudded in his chest and ears. Slowly his pulse cooled, watching Sid bent over, ribcage swelling and shrinking with each breath. Sid looked so tired, and regret swelled in Olli’s chest. This wasn’t the way to take care of anyone.

Before he could formulate that thought into words, Sid lifted his head. “So you really want to keep it.” He looked Olli in the eye, and his gaze was a heavy, weary thing. 

Olli’s mouth worked, chewing over his words. Finally he said, “I really like you.” It felt like an answer. A kind of an answer, anyway.

Sid nodded to himself. “Okay.” He pushed himself heavily to his feet. He brushed his hand over Olli’s hair, against the grain, and walked away, immune to Olli’s stare.

\--

Olli stewed for half an hour, alone. He played Angry Birds and lost badly, over and over. Finally he shoved the phone in his pocket and went looking for Sid. He found him in the kitchen, emptying out the sink and filling the dishwasher. “What do you mean, _okay_?” Olli demanded.

Sid turned and gave him a long, slow look. He shrugged, barely a twitch of his shoulders. “We can keep the bond, if you want.”

“Really?”

“You want to,” Sid said, like that was enough. “I’ve fucked up a lot of things with you because I didn’t listen. I didn’t trust you. So if you want this, then—then I believe you.”

“And that’s all right with you?”

The corners of Sid’s mouth curled upward. “It’s not like it’s a hardship, being bonded to you.”

Olli stared. “Okay,” he said slowly.

Sid turned back to the sink, like there was nothing out of the ordinary, like this was fine. Olli stepped up next to him, just to feel the heat of Sid’s arm along his.

Okay.

\--

Olli woke before the alarm the next morning. Sid was already gone, and his side of the bed was cold. Olli rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He turned it over and over his mind, like a worry stone: they were going to leave the bond alone. Sid was his to keep. Sid was _his_.

Olli couldn’t process it yet. It wasn’t real. Eventually he gave up and went to find breakfast. He had a game seven to prepare for.

He was supposed to be taking a maintenance day, but he talked the trainers into letting him get a few laps in before practice. A few other guys were out, too, which meant there were pucks, which meant Olli took a few shots, just because. That was a mistake. The second shot was like prodding a sleeping bear with a hot poker, if the bear was his shoulder. 

Stewie gave Olli another cortisone shot and told him to keep still, and so Olli spent a good part of the rest of the day sitting around and playing on his phone, waiting for Sid. “You could have gone home,” Sid said when he finally got back from his and Geno’s joint presser. It must have gone okay; Olli had heard chuckles drift down the hallway. “I’d have gotten a lift from Geno.”

“I didn’t want to drive,” Olli said.

“Soon we’re going to need a driver,” Sid said. He waggled his wrist. He hadn’t said much about it lately, but he’d been religious about icing it, and at night he was careful to position himself so Olli couldn’t accidentally roll into it. 

Olli made a face. Sid wasn’t funny. Possibly some of what Stewie had given him earlier had started to wear off.

They spent another evening on the couch, cuddling almost too close for the balmy mid-May weather. “No talking,” Olli said. He didn’t have it in him.

“Not before a game day,” Sid said, sounding affronted.

Olli twisted to give Sid a hard look. The corner of Sid’s mouth was curled in that way that meant he was actually dead serious and trying to pretend he wasn’t. Olli shook his head and settled in deeper against Sid’s side. “We can talk later,” Olli agreed. “Next series.”

\--

They lost.

Game seven, home ice, thirty-six shots for and twenty against. They scored one goal on Lundqvist. 

The media wanted to talk to Olli about his assist on the lone goal. Olli couldn’t see what there possibly was to say. “I saw Jussi was open, so I just tried a saucer pass, and he got it and it went in.” They wanted more, how it felt ending his first NHL playoffs, how it felt to lose. “It sucks,” he told them. How the fuck else did they think it felt?

The whole room was shell-shocked. Sid’s expression was so strained it hurt to look at. Geno’s face was blank, barely even angry: far worse than his usual thunderous post-loss fuming. Beau was off in a corner with Bortz, crying, and Olli didn’t even know if it was for the game they’d lost or because Beau had yet again been too injured to play.

After the media was all gone, Bylsma stood up and talked a little. Olli couldn’t really pay attention to what he said. Bylsma looked as exhausted as any of them, more defeated than some, and Olli wondered about those rumors that the Pens might look for someone new. He couldn’t find any way to feel about that.

Cleanout day was scheduled the day after next—long enough for the guys to drown the worst of their sorrows and sober back up again. But not for Olli. “Come back in tomorrow,” Stewie said. “Say in the afternoon? I want Vyas to get another look at that shoulder.”

Olli nodded numbly. The unnatural scrape in the joint was a kind of relief now, a familiar agony for him to retreat into. 

The team broke into heartbroken packs of five or six and went their separate ways. “Do you want to go?” Sid asked. “Some of the guys are going to get drunk.”

“Do you need to?” Olli asked. Sid was captain, after all. He had duties.

But Sid shook his head. “I just want to take a fucking Vicodin and sleep.”

“Yeah.”

They drove home in thick silence. They hung up their game day suits—Sid had to help Olli out of his jacket, as he’d helped Olli into it at the arena—and brushed their teeth. In bed they lay not quite out of reach, and Olli tucked his palm under Sid’s shoulder.

Olli was already half gone when the thought hit him. “We’ll have to tell them,” he mumbled. “About us.” Then he promptly fell asleep.

\--

“It needs surgery,” Vyas pronounced, as Olli had expected. Vyas scheduled him for a day later in the week, and Olli dutifully programmed it into his phone and tried not to be anxious. Surgery on joints was serious business; Vyas was dubious about Olli being ready to start the next season.

Olli got dressed again and went in search of Sid. He heard Sid before he saw him: not loud, but voice sharp and rising like he’d been angry for a while now. Olli turned the corner into the equipment room, and there were Kuni and Flower and Sid in a tight circle by the stick racks. 

“I can’t believe—” Kuni began.

“It’s fucking not your business,” Sid said. 

“We’re just—” Flower tried.

“I know, I heard you the first—Olli,” Sid said. “What’d Vyas say?”

“Surgery,” Olli said. 

Everyone winced in sympathy at that, even scowling Kuni. Sid’s face fell. “That sucks.”

Olli remembered just in time not to shrug. He was getting pretty good at it. “Yeah.”

“Are you ready to head out?” Sid asked, edging past Kuni and Flower. “I think we should pick up some groceries.”

“Sure,” Olli said slowly, awareness still keyed to Flower and Kuni’s stares. Kuni’s expression had dropped into a glower, and Olli had a bad feeling about it. 

It took Sid another twenty minutes to escape the building. Everyone had something to say, condolences or off-season questions or messages relayed from the front office. When Sid and Olli finally made it to the car, like he wasn’t pretty sure he already knew the answer, Olli asked, “What was that with the guys?”

Sid shook his head. “Just a disagreement. We don’t see eye-to-eye on something. You’re going to call your parents, right? Tell them about your shoulder? And about…”

“Yeah,” Olli said.

When they got home, it was still early yet for calling Finland. Olli helped Sid put away groceries. He asked about Sid’s wrist and listened to Sid’s fears about surgery, his hopes about the specialist Vyas was referring him to. “Are you coming with me to California?” Sid asked. “When I train? Or do you want to go home first?”

“I don’t know,” Olli said. Sid just nodded and put the milk in the fridge while Olli stood there with a case of Gatorade, processing the fact that he was bonded to Sid. For good. Olli had carefully avoided thinking about the summer at all, and now here it was. “My shoulder,” he said. “I need PT, I guess.”

“Oh fuck, that’s right,” Sid said.

Olli shook himself out of his stupor and went to put the Gatorade in the pantry.

Late that night, when Sid was already getting ready for bed, Olli took his phone to ‘his’ room and closed the door. He supposed he and Sid could give up that pretense now. Half of what he’d moved from the hotel had migrated to other parts of the house, and did he really need the other half, when Sid’s basic equipment for living was so much nicer? He hadn’t even stepped foot in the room in at least two weeks. It smelled a little stale.

Olli’s parents would be up by now. He could call and tell them the news. He was bonded for good. He had a bondmate. He had _Sid_.

He put the phone aside and started to collect the clothes discarded on the floor. He hung some of them in the closet, and the rest he folded in piles on the bed he’d never slept in. His PS4 and XBox games had spilled out of their box; he put them back in. He threw the curtains wide and opened the window, to try and let the room breathe a little.

Sid knocked at the door. “Come in,” Olli said.

Sid poked his head in. “Hey, everything okay? What’d your parents say?”

“I wanted to give them time to wake up,” Olli said. 

“Okay, well, I’m going to bed. Unless you want me to stay?”

Olli mutely shook his head. Sid walked over, wound his fingers between Olli’s, and kissed him. He offered Olli a smile and he disappeared again, pulling the door gently shut behind him.

“Fuck,” Olli said, to the ceiling. He picked up his phone, slumped onto the bed—tipping over a stack of towels he’d folded twenty minutes ago—and scrolled through his contacts until he found a number he’d never called. He hoped Sami Salo was an early riser. He hoped Salo was even home in Finland, because otherwise this might be much too late for a call, but by the time Olli had that thought, the phone had already rung three times.

When Salo answered, he sounded awake. “Salo,” he said.

“Hi, Sami. It’s Olli Määttä.”

There was a pause. Finally, warmly, “Olli, my young Olympics friend. How are you? I see the Pens’ season is over now.”

“Yeah.” Olli thought he should say something about the Bolts, but the Habs had swept them in the first round, and he couldn’t think of any comment he could make that wasn’t awkward.

“And how is Sid?” Salo asked.

Olli clutched the phone a little tighter. The case was already a slippery with sweat. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you have a minute?”

“Yes, here—just—” There were muffled voices, including Salo’s, and a door closing. “All right, I can listen now. Is Sid all right?”

“Sid’s fine. At least—I think—we’re going to keep the bond,” Olli blurted. Saying it out loud left him a little shocky: cold and fuzzy-headed.

“You’re still bonded?”

“Oh. Um, yeah. After Sochi, you know, Marty—that’s Paul Martin, he’s our 2D—he was out, and we didn’t have enough D, and so we decided to—because I needed to play, you know? They needed me. And Sid, too, obviously.” But Olli, more. Without Olli they’d have been down to Nisky, Scuds, Bortz, Engo, and a bunch of callups—two top-six defensemen in the bunch. And Olli had wanted to play. “So yeah. We’re still bonded.”

Rather than making any comment on that ramble or the logic thereof, Salo said, “And you’re going to stay bonded, you say.”

“Yeah. I really like him,” Olli said, and regretted it. Now was the time for Salo to say that the bond talking.

But Salo didn’t. He hummed thoughtfully. “You’ve thought about this a lot?”

Olli paused. He’d wished for it, yes, first hopelessly and then with the very faintest stirrings of hope. And then it was decided, done: a slippery, wriggling fact Olli couldn’t seem to hold onto. “Yes?”

“And you’ve talked to your parents, of course.”

“Not—not yet. They won’t be happy about it.”

“But you’re happy about it?”

“I don’t know,” Olli confessed. “I really like him, Sami. He’s been really great, and I—I love him, I think?” His heart thundered. He’d never admitted that even to himself.

“That’s a good start,” Salo said.

“He’s so great, and he cares about me, too, and the—” _And the sex is really good_ , Olli was about to say, but he was not going to tell Sami Salo about his sex life. “And we have a really good time together. And I just—I want him to be happy? I think I could make him happy. I know that sounds dumb, I’m only nineteen, and he’s _Sidney Crosby_ —”

“It doesn’t sound dumb. But if all that’s so, then why aren’t you happy to stay bonded?”

“I don’t know,” Olli said. He felt a little frantic. “I don’t know why.”

“But you want to.”

“Yes,” Olli said, almost certain.

“And Sid does, too?”

“I—no. I mean, he said he _would_ , but—” Olli gave up. 

A silence stretched out. “It seems like you and he might want to talk about that some more.”

“Yeah,” Olli said forlornly. “It seems like all we do is talk about things.”

“Well. I could tell you relationships are hard work, which would be true. But yours is surely more work than most. Your situation is very complicated.”

“I guess?”

Salo snorted. “You left all your peers to excel in the NHL at a very young age, and then you found yourself bonded to your much older captain through no fault of your own—”

“It was a little bit my fault,” Olli muttered.

“—when you had not even considered each other as potential partners before. Then, for reasons that seemed good to you both at the time, you decided to stay bonded indefinitely but not permanently, leaving your bodies and minds in some kind of hellish limbo and isolating you so much that you talk to me, whom you have played with for all of one tournament—”

“I—” Olli started, the beginning of an apology, but Salo rode right over him.

“—instead of all the people in your life who know you better. Olli, I can hardly imagine a more difficult scenario in which to navigate a relationship.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Salo repeated gently. 

“I don’t really think about it like that,” Olli said.

Salo held the silence, giving Olli time to _think about it like that._ At the end of it, Olli said, “So I guess I have to talk to Sid some more.”

“That sounds like a good idea. And perhaps some other people, too. People who care about you.”

“Okay,” Olli said meekly. “Listen, I’m sorry to bother you—”

Salo laughed. “Didn’t you hear? We got swept. What have I been doing all this time but playing with my children and getting fat? So you should call me every day, Olli Määttä of Jyväskylä. Tell me all your problems.”

Olli couldn’t help smiling into the phone. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “Thanks, Sami.”

He’d been in here procrastinating far longer than he realized—it was after two in the morning, and he was supposed to clean out his locker tomorrow. Talk to media some more, tell them how this year sucked but next year would be better. Say goodbye to people—to Jussi, who didn’t think he was coming back next year.

Exhaustion sucked at Olli like quicksand. He couldn’t think about any of that tonight. He definitely couldn’t call his parents tonight. 

Sid stirred as Olli crawled into bed. “Go okay?” Sid mumbled. 

“Mm,” Olli said. He kissed Sid’s shoulder. “Go back to sleep.” He couldn’t help but press close, where Sid’s skin and scent worked its same old comfortable magic.

\--

Sid had to drag Olli out of bed the next morning, blinking and groggy, and they barely made it to the rink in time for interviews. Olli didn’t have a single fucking idea what he said. Something about Worlds, maybe, which he definitely wasn’t playing in. He tagged along to lunch with Sid, because it was easier than cooking himself. After that, Sid wanted to go hang out with some of the guys before they left, and probably Olli should do the same, but he just. He couldn’t. So he talked Sid into dropping him off at home for a nap.

He woke up headachey and starved. After downing a glass of water, he made himself a sandwich. He thought of Sid as he put the cucumber in, which Sid always laughed at. But Sid put cucumber in his sandwich now, too, sometimes.

Playing on his phone as he ate, he thought about calling Harry—where was Harry now, anyway? At home, Olli supposed. They hadn’t talked since before the Knights’ season ended.

Olli couldn’t quite sit still anymore. When he got the text from Sid inviting him over to Flower’s house for drinks, he went almost without thinking. 

Whatever Flower and Sid had disagreed about, the storm seemed to have passed: when Olli followed Vero to the back deck, Sid was laughing, head thrown back and eyes shut, and Flower sat nearby looking very smug. Tanger and Duper were there, too, and Kuni and his alpha, and Suttsy, for some reason.

“Olli,” Sid said, when Olli caught his eye. “Come on, you want a beer or something? They’re in the cooler.”

“Painkillers,” Olli said.

“Aw, fuck,” said Flower sympathetically. “I think Vero’s got some Pepsi in the house?”

So Olli took a deck chair near Sid’s and sipped at a Pepsi on the rocks. Sid laughed while Tanger and Duper teased him in French, game seven forgotten. A breeze ruffled the hairs on Olli’s legs. Clouds scudded slowly overhead in a sky turning sunset-orange. Hockey and injuries aside, there wasn’t a lot more Olli could ask for.

His stomach felt a little tight, almost nauseous. Maybe the Pepsi had gone off. “Can Pepsi go bad?” he asked Suttsy.

Suttsy shrugged, lazy and loose-limbed. He’d been working on Flower’s beer cooler for a while. “Fuck if I know.”

Sid was having a good time. Olli didn’t want to interrupt, but he didn’t want to be here anymore, either. “I’m headed out,” he told Sid.

“Hey, no,” Sid said. “Are you sure? Should I come with you?”

Olli felt curious eyes on them. “No, it’s okay. I woke up with a headache,” he said, and Sid let him go.

Olli was still lying awake when Sid got in, much later. He rolled over onto his back as Sid tip-toed into the bedroom. “Hey,” Sid said softly. 

“Hey.”

“Feel better?”

“Mm.”

Olli listened to Sid shuffle around the room. He knew Sid’s going-to-bed sounds now: the clank of his jeans falling to the floor with the keys still in the pocket, his little hum right before he spit into the sink. Finally the bathroom light shut off, and Sid crawled into bed. He curled up on his side next to Olli. His palm came to rest on Olli’s chest. “Okay?” Sid asked.

Olli didn’t know what to answer. Now was not the time for any of the things he needed to ask. He gripped Sid’s hand—thick and broad, like Sid was even now, at season’s end. “I love you,” Olli muttered. He ignored Sid’s sharp inhale and finally, firmly, he closed his eyes.

The bed shifted, and a feather-light kiss brushed Olli’s lips. “I love you, too.” The words were very soft.

Olli’s eyes popped open again despite himself. Sid’s face was inches above his. The glow of Sid’s alarm clock was too faint for Olli to make out any but the broadest contours of Sid’s face by, but it was easier that way, Olli thought. His pulse had picked up.

“Something’s going on with you,” Sid said.

Olli opened his mouth to deny it, but they were past that. He knew better now, kind of. “We shouldn’t talk about it now. Wait until tomorrow.”

Sid pondered this for a moment. “Can I kiss you again? Is that okay?”

Olli’s throat was so tight. “Yeah.”

Sid bent over Olli, a hand braced on each side of Olli’s ribs. His kiss was deeper this time, sharp with the flavor of toothpaste, wet with tongue. Olli lay back and let himself be kissed until he couldn’t lie still anymore, until he had to roll his hips up—fruitlessly, against empty air.

“Hey,” Sid said.

Olli could hear the smile in Sid’s voice, and just like that, he wanted to cry. “Stop.”

Instantly Sid stilled. “Olli?”

Fuck, Olli was so stupid. If he had just said, _Sid, I think we should talk_ , Sid would have dropped anything, anytime in the last twenty-four hours. Instead here they were, skin-to-skin and as far apart as if the Atlantic were already between them.

“What is it?” A touch brushed Olli’s cheek. Which was wet. Fuck. Olli worked himself out from under Sid and sat up. He heard Sid fumbling, and the next moment the bed lamp came on. “Hey,” Sid said gently, in an entirely different tone. He settled back on the bed, one foot underneath him and the other hanging over the edge of the bed. He rubbed a hand up and down Olli’s arm—the good one, because Sid was always careful like that.

“You don’t want to keep the bond,” Olli said, more because he couldn’t hold it in anymore than out of any conscious intent.

Sid stared at him. “Is this what you’ve been freaking out about?” His lips quirked: crisis already resolved. “We said we would.”

“But you don’t want to,” Olli repeated.

Sid’s gentle smirk slowly disappeared. “Like you said. It’s a relationship, right? Best one I’ve ever had.” His voice dropped to a mumble for that last bit. “I’d be fucking stupid to give it up. To give you up.”

A week ago, Olli had never even dared wish for Sid say to say shit like that. He ought to have been happy to hear it now. “I’m the one who said we should keep the bond after Sochi. You didn’t want to, but I pushed, and you said yes.”

“Olli—”

“You said that you fucked things up because you didn’t listen to me. But I didn’t listen to you, either. I’m sorry, that wasn’t—I should have. But I’m trying now, okay? Whatever you say, I won’t try to talk you out of it. Just—do you want to keep the bond? Really?”

Silence stretched out, on and on, a flat, frozen stillness like an endless sheet of ice. Olli smelled salt, saw Sid’s eyes turn wet, and he knew, but it took another long moment for Sid to shake his head, eyes to the heavens. Or the ceiling. “Why do you fucking put me through this? We _decided_.”

“You decided,” Olli said, as gently as he knew how. “We never—we didn’t get to talk about it, or how it would work, or if we should. I’m not a little kid. I know just because I want something, that doesn’t always mean I should have it.”

“But you do. You do want to.”

“I don’t want to be bonded to someone who doesn’t want to be bonded to me,” Olli said, and it was almost, almost the truth. “That’s not a good idea.”

“I guess,” Sid said, sounding a little choked. Gradually he slumped. “You’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

“Well,” Olli said with a bravery he didn’t feel, “maybe you’ll still feel that way—after.” _After_. An ominous word like an oncoming sandstorm, all-encompassing and thick enough to block out the sun. Who knew what would remain after it had scraped them clean? Not Olli.

Sid’s eyes shone wet and black in the light of the bedside lamp. His fingers curled over the edge of the bedspread. “I just want you to be happy, Olli. God, so fucking much, I want that.” 

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t. Olli’s chest was a vise and his throat was hard like stone, but he had to believe it _would_ be okay. If he kept saying it, it would. He pulled Sid into his arms and held him as tightly as he knew how. Sid clenched his hands in Olli’s t-shirt. Olli’s nose filled with the scent of saltwater tears until finally he couldn’t smell anything anymore. “Sid?”

“Yeah.”

“You remember that time you said that when I tried to take care of you, you’d try to let me?”

Sid huffed wetly. “I remember.”

“I need you to let me, now.”

“Fuck.” Sid shrugged into Olli’s arms and pressed his face to Olli’s neck. “I wanted you to be happy,” he said again, and Olli’s heart nearly split in two.

“I want you to be happy, too, you know. That’s what you told me, right? It goes both ways.”

Sid mumbled, “I’m sorry. For all this. For dragging you into it, for all the shitty mistakes I made—”

“Stop,” Olli said. He stretched his arms as far around Sid as they would reach. His heart felt so large and full, and everything was going to hurt like hell soon, but he loved Sid so much. For this one moment, it was all he could feel. “It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.”

Sid shuddered, and Olli’s breath thickened with tears, and no one let go.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there!!!

Olli woke first the next morning. His eyes were dried out from crying. His euphoric certainty of the night before had mostly faded, leaving behind a conviction that yes, he had to do this, and yes, it was going to hurt so fucking much. 

He watched a wedge of sunlight crawl slowly across the ceiling, and he listened to Sid breathe. Sid shifted finally, rolling over onto his back. He flopped his head towards Olli, and his eyes opened into slits. “Hey,” Sid croaked.

“Hey.”

The moment stretched out, measured only by Olli’s heartbeat and the rise and fall of Sid’s chest. It was very still. “Can I—?” Sid asked. He shoved halfway upright, bringing his face inches from Olli’s. “Is this okay?” His breath was—not very sweet.

“Yeah,” Olli said.

Sid bent and kissed him, almost like the night before, except there was no trembling want in Sid’s kiss now, and the pit in Olli’s stomach was wholly different. Sid cupped Olli’s jaw and mouthed carefully at Olli’s lips, once, twice, three times. Then he retreated and pushed upright.

They stared at each other a moment, and then Olli sat up, too. He wondered if their aborted sex the night before was the closest he’d ever come to that again, with Sid. “I’ll make breakfast,” Sid said finally. 

“Okay.”

Olli took a shower and didn’t think about anything except the warm water falling on his skin. Afterwards, he followed the smell of bacon down to the kitchen. “Really?” he asked.

“Offseason,” Sid said airily. “It’s gonna be another few minutes here, you want to crack the eggs?”

Olli wasn’t sure how close to stand to Sid at the stove. It was like the last morning of vacation, when the fun was over and all that was left was packing up and goodbyes and a return to normal life, but before any of that you still had to eat breakfast and make small talk with the friend you were saying goodbye to. Or the bondmate.

“So I guess we need to talk to Vyas,” Sid said. “And the front office.”

“Yeah.”

Olli wouldn't have waited another day, if he had his way. Now that it was decided and certain, Olli wasn’t going to endure one more minute of this awful anticipation than he absolutely had to.

Olli was not going to have his way, though. Sid made a couple of calls to get the ball rolling, but it turned out the ball would have to keep rolling for a while before the front office and the doctors determined whether the bond should be broken before or after Olli’s surgery, whether to start the bond suppressants after Sid and Olli had already gone home or while they were still here in Pittsburgh, what medical professionals Sid and Olli would each consult once they got home and what their respective recoveries might involve—the list went on.

Olli could only listen to the first ten minutes of Sid’s calls before he ducked away to his and Sid’s bedroom and Skyped his parents, who’d been sending him increasingly insistent texts in the last forty-eight hours. As soon as his mom appeared on the screen, Olli said, “We’re going to break the bond soon.” Then he started crying.

\--

Sid was clearly itching to get out of Pittsburgh. “It’s too early to train, and I can’t anyway.” He waggled his wrist. “Usually after the season I go on a vacation—”

“—but you can’t this time,” Olli said.

Sid sagged. “I shouldn’t bitch, right? You’re stuck here, worse than me.”

Olli didn’t really see how he was stuck _worse_ than Sid, but whatever. “We could go to a movie.”

Sid didn’t like superhero movies, it turned out. Olli thought the comedy that’d topped the box office the week before looked dumb. They ended up in the back row at a matinee of The Lego Movie, sharing a tub of popcorn like any courting couple. Olli had trouble paying much attention to the story. It didn’t seem like it really needed a lot of attention, anyway.

At home, Olli opened the door to his room and looked around in dismay. Picking up some clothes was one thing, but packing the room up and moving it somewhere else—again—was going to take more effort. Maybe some boxes this time, even. “You can leave your stuff here, if you want,” Sid said.

“What if you have guests?” Olli asked, never mind that Sid had never once had enough visitors to need the space.

Sid shrugged. “You can store it in the garage, then.”

Olli tried to at least organize the stacks. The closet was full, too, though some of it had eventually migrated to Sid’s closet. Sid reappeared with cardboard boxes apparently retrieved from the depths of the garage. “No point throwing them out,” he said. “I figured someone would want them, sometime.” He reached for a stack of undershirts.

“I can do it,” Olli said, too sharp, but he couldn’t rein it in, somehow.

“Sure,” Sid agreed, putting the undershirts back on the bed and retreating to the door. “Sure. Let me know if you need anything.”

It only took Olli an hour to fill the boxes. He wedged a last pair of socks in a corner and surveyed the territory. It was better. There was plenty to go, but he needed more boxes. And he thought maybe the suits would just have to keep hanging in the closet, despite how strong the sudden need to disentangle his life from Sid’s.

It took him another hour of poking at his phone, showering, puttering around the kitchen before he went looking for Sid. He found him in the dark, face lit only by the Ducks-Kings game seven pregame show. There was space on the far end of the sofa for Olli to sit. He settled next to Sid, slumped into Sid’s side, and told that little voice in the back of his head that kept counting last times to fucking _shut up already_.

“Hey,” Sid said. 

“Hey.” Things just felt better when Olli could touch Sid, even now when his brain was threatening him with the future. Deliberately he slowed his breathing: long inhale, long exhale.

“All packed?” Sid asked.

“I need more boxes,” Olli said.

“Mm.”

Milbury and Roenick were on, but Sid had the whole thing muted. “Sid?”

“Yeah.”

“What will we be like, after?”

Sid was quiet. Clips of their game played on the screen: all those fruitless shots as the Rangers collapsed around the net, as Lundqvist stopped everything whether he could see it or not. “I don’t know,” Sid said finally.

“I mean, will we still be friends?”

Sid shifted a little against Olli’s side. “Do you think we won’t?”

“We weren’t really friends before. I mean, you were a good captain,” Olli added hastily. “And you took me and the other new guys to dinner that time. But we didn’t talk or—or hang out.” 

“No, but—did you think I’d just drop you, after all this?” 

There was a commercial break on. A clean-cut looking guy was earnestly telling the story of how UPMC helped his sports injury. “I don’t know,” Olli said.

“Oh.” It was a small, sad sound, barely more than a puff of air.

Olli waited for more, but none came. Sid stared at the screen, eyes suspiciously shiny. “Sid?”

“I thought—never mind.”

“What?”

Sid met Olli’s gaze. “I wouldn’t,” he said. “I wouldn’t anyway, but after all this?” He shrugged, tight and unhappy.

“I’m sorry,” Olli said. “I didn’t mean—I just don’t know what it’s going to be like.”

Sid exhaled, long and slow. “Fair enough.”

Olli rested his head on Sid’s shoulder again and watched Roenick and Milbury gesture silently on-screen.

\--

The front office called the next morning. Sid and Olli would start taking the suppressants just after Olli’s surgery. “They say it’d be better for you to be at home first,” Sid said, which didn’t do a lot to ease Olli’s fears. Nor did the consultation with the bond specialist the Penguins contracted with. Her name was Leslie, she had chestnut hair and glasses with very thin frames, and she was an omega. “How much do you know about the symptoms of a broken bond?” she asked.

Olli tried to remember what he and Sid had been told at the heat clinic, all those months ago. “Nausea?” he hazarded. “Uh, depression, mood swings, headaches. I think.”

“It’s true, all those are symptoms that you may experience. However, most people also experience an almost overwhelming sense of grief—even if, as in your case, they never wanted the bond.”

“Oh,” Olli said faintly.

“You experience a bond, even a temporary one, with every part of your being: body, mind, emotions. And you’ll experience the breaking of the bond with all of them as well. It’s very natural. It won’t mean anything’s wrong.” 

She gave him pamphlets of signs to watch out for in case something with the drugs went wrong or there were unexpected side effects, and talked him through each one. “Will I be the same?” Olli asked. “After. Will I be the same person I was before?”

“Well.” She settled back in her chair and gave him a thoughtful look. “Every relationship we have changes us a little bit, doesn’t it?”

“No, but—will I be the same as now? Will I feel the same things?”

“Not all of them,” she said, so easily and casually, as though it was obvious. Probably it was obvious. “As the bond withers, your heightened awareness of your bond partner—through touch, smell, etcetera—that will fade. If your sexual attraction to your partner significantly increased with the bond, that will likely diminish as well.”

Olli nodded, trying to look thoughtful and as if this were everything he’d wanted to know.

“But emotional attachment—” Leslie began, and paused. Olli held very still. “It’s impossible to predict. Even betas isolated together in times of crisis—at war, for example—form attachments that go quite deep. Sometimes those kinds of emotion dissolve once the crisis is past, but often they persist.”

It wasn’t anything Olli hadn’t already suspected. She just used a lot more words.

She gave him care instructions, for after he began taking the suppressants. She detailed the list of symptoms, which were pretty much what he remembered. “And you should be careful not to contact your bond partner.”

“I—what?” 

“As we said, you experience a bond with your whole self. If you deliberately hang onto the bond mentally and emotionally while your body is physically responding to the suppressants, it can significantly amplify the symptoms and may delay the dissolution of the bond.”

“Okay,” Olli said faintly. 

Sid picked Olli up afterwards. “Hungry?” he asked. Olli was starving, he found. Sitting absolutely still in a vise grip of worry took a lot of energy. They got sandwiches to go and took them down to the river. There were people feeding the ducks, and some of them seemed to recognize Sid even behind his sunglasses and cap pulled low, but nobody approached.

Olli ate until there were only a few crumbs left. He threw those to the ducks, who quickly waddled over in his direction, a mighty feathered quacking army soon very nearly at his feet. “That’s what you get,” Sid said, laughing.

Olli gave him the finger and then, as stealthy as a hopeful fourteen-year-old, he sprawled his knees apart until one of them touched Sid’s. Sid’s lips quirked under the bill of his baseball cap.

On the ride home, Olli almost said, _Isn’t it weird how now that we’re breaking up, we’re kind of courting?_ But he thought better of it.

\--

Over the next two days, Olli boxed up the rest of the stuff strewn around the spare bedroom, and Sid carried the boxes to the garage. Sid flew out to Toronto one morning to get another opinion on his wrist, and Olli spent the day with Jussi and Salla and the kids. They fed him food from home, and they didn’t ask him any uncomfortable questions.

Sid got in late that night. Olli picked him up from the airport. “What’s the news?” Olli asked.

“They took images,” Sid said. “We’re talking maybe a shot, try some rehab. I really don’t want surgery.”

“Me, either,” Olli said. It was kind of a lie. His shoulder hurt constantly now, even at rest, no matter how careful he was not to jostle it. 

“Sucks,” Sid said sympathetically, and Olli couldn’t disagree.

At home, Olli pulled frozen meals for them both and set them reheating. Sid hung around at the edges of his vision, out of his way. “So,” Sid said finally. “Get your shoulder fixed tomorrow. Fly home a couple of days after that. Start the drugs.”

“Yeah.” Olli was exhausted just thinking about it.

Sid seemed on the edge of saying something more, but Olli kept waiting, and Sid’s mouth stayed shut. Olli was too tired and restless to press.

They ate in silence at the kitchen table. Olli scrolled through Facebook afterwards while Sid put the dishes in the dishwasher. Then suddenly Sid was right there at the table, considering Olli with an expression Olli couldn’t read. “What?” Olli asked. Sid took the hand Olli had been scrolling with and tugged. Olli stood. “What is it?”

Sid just kept looking. Finally, oh so slowly, he leaned up and put his lips to Olli’s. Olli grabbed for Sid’s shoulder, his hip. He exhaled into Sid’s mouth and found he was shaking, he’d missed this so much. 

“Hey,” Sid murmured, reminding Olli of a few nights ago, when Olli’d called this whole thing off. Now he rolled right over those memories and mouthed at Sid’s mouth that he wasn’t going to have anymore. He’d wondered last time, but now he was certain: this was his last chance with Sid before the world turned over, and he was going to take every last moment of it. He cupped the back of Sid’s head, and Sid hummed, pleased. Satisfaction bloomed in Olli’s chest, warm and uncomplicated. He was making his omega happy, and all was right with the world.

“We should—” Sid said after a while, pulling back. He was breathing hard. “Upstairs?”

It was slow progress: they stopped to kiss at the base of the stairs and again on the landing. They arrived in Sid’s bedroom at last. Sid helped Olli ease his button-down off his shoulders—Olli had given up on t-shirts a week ago, because pulling them on hurt too much. Even now his shoulder was starting to throb. 

But Sid was grinning at him, bright with mischief, and Olli just had much more important things to worry about than a little bit of pain. He got out of his jeans and boxers, and then he pulled Sid in close and kissed him again. Sid rocked against him, his dick a hot line of pressure against Olli’s thigh. “Fuck me,” Sid murmured. “If you want—I mean—”

“Yeah,” Olli breathed.

They’d done this a few times, but not since Olli’s shoulder got really bad. This time they fucked lying on Olli’s good side. Through his chest Olli felt Sid’s every gasp and panted breath; he’d have had to crawl inside Sid’s skin to be any closer, and right this moment he thought he might want that, his dick in Sid’s ass, his nose so full of Sid’s sweat and shampoo and salt-slick that he couldn’t smell anything else. 

This was it, Olli thought, hitching his hips. This was all he was going to get. It rolled through his mind like a mantra, over and over, speeding to a finish: _this is it, this is it, this is it._

His knot bloomed. Five seconds later, Sid shuddered around it. He threw his head back, like he always did, barely catching himself before he took out Olli’s nose. He clutched at Olli’s hand and gripped it tight as he rode through the aftershocks.

Olli’s breath slowed. Lassitude stole over him; slowly he remembered it was late, and he was tired from a long day and too much worrying. He brushed a kiss against Sid’s nape. Sid’s dark curls brushed Olli’s forehead and tickled his eyelids. Sid still had a grip on Olli’s hand. “My shoulder,” Olli said, tugging, and Sid abruptly let him free. 

“Sorry,” Sid said. Olli responding by pressing another kiss to Sid’s skin. Sid took a deep breath, long and slow until it caught, and then he let it loose again.

“Sid,” Olli said softly. He could ask now, when there was no way to see Sid’s face.

“Yeah.”

“It’s real, right? If we feel different after, even if this is all we have—this was still real.”

“Yeah, Olli.” Sid reached up to brush his fingers against Olli’s, not to hold onto but just to touch. “Yeah, it’s real.”

\--

A few days later, Olli stepped off the connecting flight from Helsinki and onto Jyväskylä soil. He was a husk of himself, desiccated from twelve hours of recirculated air, stupid with sleep deprivation and painkillers. All that and he hadn’t even taken his first dose of the bond suppressants. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have felt pulled quite so thin, as if some part of him was still anchored to Pittsburgh and Sid.

Olli stood to the side in baggage claim, his arm in a sling to protect his surgically-repaired shoulder, while his mother watched the conveyor for their luggage. He closed his eyes. All around him there was Finnish, murmurs far and near, a tide of it washing gently over him. He got along in English fine, he thought; he hadn’t realized how much work it was until now, finally, when understanding was effortless.

He wished Sid were here. The thought was sudden and sharp and bright. He wanted Sid to see—well, maybe not the airport, but the people. He wanted Sid to hear all those Finnish voices, to meet Olli’s dad, who’d be at the curb any minute. 

Olli would take his first dose of the bond suppressant when he got home. It couldn’t come soon enough.

They found Olli’s dad, who hummed and squeezed Olli’s good shoulder. “Welcome home,” he said. On the way out to Olli’s house, Olli texted Sid: **in Finland**. Then he turned off his phone. He was resolved not to text Sid or google him or do anything that might give the bond reason to hold on.

At home, Olli collapsed carefully onto his own bed, still in his sling. He crawled between worn, familiar sheets, and he didn’t dream.

\--

The first days were hell. 

The fraying bond manifested like it always had: a headache that began behind Olli’s eyeballs. Then it crawled through his sinuses and settled into his temples. Olli couldn’t think. He couldn’t smell much of anything—the drugs suppressed that, too. His mother’s blini tasted of nothing. So did the ruispala that he’d been pining after for months—it could’ve been generic American rye bread, other than the shape. Even the salmiakki was wrong, and he maybe cried some very private, very frustrated tears over that.

Or maybe the tears were because he wasn’t sleeping for shit. His shoulder woke him every three or four hours. During the day he slept in the recliner for a couple of hours at a stretch. He walked around in a daze. He checked his phone continuously, though whether for a forbidden text from Sid or to break the silence himself, Olli didn’t know.

Two days after he arrived, Olli woke up and puked over the side of his bed. And then again. He barely managed to stumble to the bathroom before his gorge rose a third time, sudden and irresistible. By the time the waves of nausea finally subsided a little, he was down to strings of bile. His throat was sore, and his abdomen ached from retching.

His mom found him as he was coming out of the bathroom. “I threw up on the floor,” Olli said. He felt like he was ten years old again, telling his mom he’d caught the flu.

Just like old times, she put her hand to his forehead to check his temperature, like they didn’t both know where Olli’s uneasy stomach came from. “Go drink some water, so we can try to keep you hydrated,” she said. “I’ll clean up.”

Obediently he filled a glass and took a few cautious sips before sinking down into a chair at the kitchen table. Down the hall his mom was cleaning up his mess, and probably soon she’d offer him some broth. If he got hungry for real later, she’d cook him something. He didn’t have to worry about anything now. Nothing except Sid, anyway, which Olli could do nothing about.

He was crying by the time his mom got back to the kitchen. “Olli, what is it?” He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her as hard as he knew how. “Oh, sweetheart.”

“It was so hard.” His voice was like gravel. “Mom, it was so hard in Pittsburgh.”

She held him tighter.

\--

Olli cried constantly now. It was mortifying. When they ran out of milk, he cried. When he couldn’t get the back of the TV remote open to put in new batteries, he cried. Sometimes he’d end up swallowing tears and snot, and that would make him puke again. 

He couldn’t remember what it was like not to have a headache. His throat was always sore. His ribs always ached.

\--

“Have you even been in the sauna yet?” his mom asked, a week in. When he said he hadn’t, her eyebrows rose. “Well, why not? I’m going in a bit. I bought birch whisks at the store this morning, too—why don’t you get them ready?”

Olli didn’t know why he hadn’t. He came no nearer an answer as he put the birch whisks to soak in warm water, as he turned the electric stove on in the sauna. He stripped and showered—his first shower in a couple of days, because he was a little bit afraid to take the sling off. Then he went and met his mom coming down the hall, also nude and already carrying the birch whisks. He followed her into the enveloping heat of the sauna and closed the door behind him; he settled his bare ass on the birch wood bench. He breathed deep, the heat stinging the inside of his nose.

It wasn’t so different from the sauna at Consol, also electric. It felt different anyway. Maybe it was the pungency of the fresh-cut whisks. Maybe it was his mom, leaning out to pour water over the stones and then settling back on the bench with a deep, contented sigh. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back.

Olli closed his, too. He let the heat seep into him, letting it leach out his thoughts. Maybe it’d take some of the pain with it. 

His mom ladled more water on after a while and handed Olli a whisk. He slapped himself with it, chest and thighs and as much of his back as he could reach with only one arm. Then he turned so his mom could get all the parts he couldn’t. Birch leaves stuck to his skin, as sure a signal of home as the ruispala.

They stayed a long time in the sauna, far longer than any of the Americans or Canadians he’d visited a sauna with ever had the patience for. Every so often they stepped out and took showers to cool themselves down and wash off the most recent layer of sweat. Olli’s mom didn’t say much—never asked him how he was, how he felt, if he thought of Sid.

For a long while, he _didn’t_ think of Sid. He didn’t think of anything. He drifted.

His mom grunted finally—the noise she made when she’d made up her mind to be finished at last. She flicked the switch off on the stove, and Olli followed her out. On the other side of the door, she turned and pressed a kiss to his temple. She looked better; the sauna had eased a strain in her face Olli hadn’t even recognized before. 

Olli showered off again. Then, without thinking about it, Olli ended up in his bedroom instead of in the living room recliner. He stretched out on his bed and didn’t even notice falling asleep. 

He woke to late-afternoon light streaming in the window, so he had to have been asleep for four or five hours. His shoulder ached fiercely. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine Sid next to him, never mind that the bed was too small for two. He could hear Sid snuffling in his sleep; he could just about touch Sid and feel that wonderful calm wash over him.

Tears leaked from Olli’s eyes almost before he noticed. They rolled down the sides of his head and into his ears. He couldn’t catch a full breath. He sniffled. He dug his fingers into the bed comforter, and he missed Sid with his whole body: fingers and gut, throat and balls.

When he was finished, his head throbbed as much from the crying as the bond. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, now swollen and tender. He couldn’t breathe through his nose. Still, it felt as though the tears and the sauna before them had washed something away. Good or bad, he wasn’t sure yet. 

After he splashed cold water on his eyes in the bathroom, he went downstairs to find his mom working on dinner. “Can I help?” he asked.

She looked him over carefully and then gave him the asparagus to break the woody ends off of.

\--

Friends filtered back into Olli’s life from school and his old Mestis team. Everyone wanted to hear about the life of a big NHL star, as they called him. What was it like, playing with Crosby and Jokinen and all those guys? They wanted to hear about the Olympics—tell us _everything_ about Selanne, Olli.

He left the bond out of it. He didn’t mean to, but when someone brought up Sidney Crosby, how was Olli supposed to casually mention that he’d been bonded to Sid for almost four months? That the bond was breaking now, a day at a time, and it fucking sucked? That he missed Sid like he’d have missed ice or air?

And the longer he went without mentioning the bond, the weaker it seemed. The doctors had told him it would be a gradual thing; he shouldn’t expect just wake up one morning without it. Instead it melted away, almost imperceptible, like a thaw.

He woke one morning to a text. It was from Sid, late the previous night in North American time. It was a single line: **hope you’re doing okay.**

Olli stared at the words, heart beating too hard. He wondered if that tightening in his chest was the bond, reasserting itself, or if it was just nerves. He should delete the message and maybe Sid’s contact, too, to spare himself the temptation. 

He tapped out, **feeling better.** Then he went to breakfast.

An hour later he let himself check back. There was just one word from Sid: **good**. Olli read that one word over and over, until he when he closed his eyes he could still see against his eyelids.

\--

Twice a week Olli drove across town to the physical therapist, who coaxed Olli’s arm and shoulder into moving all kinds of ways that they absolutely fucking did not want to move. By week two, Olli’s trainer Juhani had Olli back on the bike and the treadmill, cautiously doing cardio. Olli wasn’t allowed to go hard enough yet to really lose himself in it, but it was something. In another week, Juhani was talking about starting Olli on some lower-body work—the exercises that didn’t require two functioning shoulders. 

“You could take some time off,” Antti pointed out. He was home visiting from Helsinki, and he seemed to have decided to use this time to cheer Olli up. Or possibly torment him.

“I like it better than doing nothing,” Olli grumbled.

“Video games aren’t nothing.” Antti leaned into Olli just in time to kill another zombie. 

Olli would give Antti this: he didn’t ask how Olli he was feeling even once. 

And so, because he didn’t ask, Olli didn’t know how to tell Antti that training had come to feel almost as good as the sauna. He finished every training session feeling lighter, as though he was sweating out the bond along with the water weight.

\--

Once a week, Olli met with the bond therapist instead. He hated the beta on sight; he had barely enough perspective to recognize that this might not be Dr. Aalto’s fault, might have nothing to do with him at all. Dr. Aalto never seemed surprised by any of Olli’s symptoms—or his rudeness, either, which Olli couldn’t always quite contain.

“These are all very normal experiences when suppressing an established bond,” Dr. Aalto told Olli at the end of almost every visit, as if that were meant to be reassuring. Maybe it was, a little.

\--

**back in town baby!! we should hang**

The text was from Sami Vatanen. At a glance, he appeared to have sent it to half of Jyväskylä, or at least every local hockey guy Olli knew. Vaguely Olli remembered exchanging numbers at the Olympics with a promise to meet up over the summer. Probably Sami hadn’t meant anything by it; Olli certainly hadn’t.

Without thinking very hard, Olli responded, **yeah we should. when are you free?**

Sami was free that night, it turned out, having drinks with some JYP friends. He introduced Olli as his Olympics buddy, upon which the group welcomed Olli right in. Olli worked very slowly on a beer—just one wouldn’t fuck him up, he thought, especially since he’d scaled back pretty far on the painkillers—and wondered why he’d come. Most of the guys were a couple years older than him, and he’d been out of the local hockey scene a long time, between the year in Pittsburgh and the two years in London before that. He knew names, some faces, but they weren’t friends. 

He stuck around anyway, listening to stories from the KHL and the Liiga, which he hadn’t followed at all this season except for what Antti passed along to him. He and Sami talked Olympics for a bit, loudly, reminiscing about Teemu and Salo and Rask to the envious chagrin of the other guys at the table. Olli teased Sami for not scoring any goals, and Sami teased Olli for only bothering to score in games they won by at least four. 

Guys started drifting away, citing training or girlfriends or boyfriend—that was the one other alpha in the group. And then only Olli and Sami were left, and it occurred to Olli to feel self-conscious. 

Sami probably wasn’t capable of that. He stretched out his legs, drained the last of his beer, and said, “So how’s things? How’s the shoulder?” Those were easy questions to answer; Olli had had a lot of practice recently. But then Sami asked, “How’s Sid?”

Olli flushed and looked at the tabletop. “He’s fine, I guess.”

Sami nodded thoughtfully, picking at the label on the empty bottle. “You broke it off after Sochi, right? The bond?” 

Sami hadn’t said a word about the bond or Sid while everyone else was there. Olli hadn’t noticed, but now he felt gratitude like an ache. “Uh, no. We kept it until—until after the playoffs.”

Sami blinked at him. “You mean you _just_ broke it? Like a month ago?”

Olli counted backward and found that he had in fact been home for four weeks now. “Yeah.”

“Shit.” Sami regarded Olli in shock. “So you were—all that time, you were bonded?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. Has it—has it sucked?”

“Kind of, yeah.”

“Shit,” Sami repeated. “Shit. And with the shoulder, too.”

Olli shrugged with the other shoulder. He didn’t have a lot to add. It did suck, pretty much.

“Do you miss him?” Sami asked. He turned a little red, a little suddenly awkward. “I mean, I know you weren’t, like, _together_ —”

“Yeah, we were,” Olli said. Instead of crying he shoved to his feet and went to buy another round. He was learning tricks like that for keeping from spilling his emotions all over everything—like he was a kid all over again. He set another bottle of Karhu in front of Sami and said, “I don’t think you can be bonded to someone and not be together. I don’t think it works like that. Not if you’re bonded for that long.”

“That’s not what you said in Sochi.”

“I was younger and stupider then,” Olli said, and Sami laughed.

Then Sami sobered and said, “You should come running with me.”

\--

It was better running outside than on a treadmill, and better to run with Sami, who teased Olli for his slow legs. “How can you even skate on legs like those?” They ran on gravel footpaths by lakes that sparkled in the morning sun. Olli’s lungs filled with the green, bright fragrances of home. One day they circled Lake Palokkajärvi, just north of the city. After they’d stretched out, they settled by silent agreement on the lake’s sloping grassy bank. A gentle breeze blew through the birches behind them, rattling the leaves like paper.

“What was it like?” Sami asked.

Olli had been busy thinking about midsummer, less than a week away. It took him a moment to catch up. “The bond?”

“Yeah.” Sami leaned back on his hands, ever so casual, and regarded a single cloud drifting above the opposite shore.

Olli hadn’t had to _explain_ the bond to many people. He had to think for a minute, to try and find words. “It was—a lot.” Sami nodded like this was actually helpful. Olli took a breath. “He was just there all the time? He had to be. We couldn’t be apart for more than a couple of hours at the beginning—well, you know. Like in Sochi.”

Sami nodded again.

Olli continued, “We got along really well, I guess? But maybe it’d be like that with anyone, if you had to be around them that much. Like you’re almost like one person.”

“Or you’d drive each other absolutely fucking nuts.”

“I—guess.”

“But maybe that was the bond, making it so you didn’t, like, get on each other’s nerves?”

“Maybe?” 

Sami shook his head. “Fuck, don’t listen to me, man. I’m a beta. I haven’t got a fucking clue.”

Olli wanted to argue with Sami about that. He didn’t know why. It was true enough, anyway—a beta would never experience quite the same thing Olli had. 

“But you were fucking, right?” Sami asked, finally turning to look at Olli. “By the end?”

Olli’s face heated a little. “Yeah.”

“Was it good?” 

Olli hesitated. “If shit got around, Sid would freak out.” His heart squeezed with a protectiveness that he hadn’t felt in a month. He’d assumed it had gone with the rest of the bond. “NHL guys, or other hockey guys you know, you can’t tell them.” 

“Duh,” Sami said, with a roll of his eyes. “So come on.”

His smirk was an invitation, one Olli almost recognized from Beau or Marty or alphas in junior. Olli collapsed back onto the bank, gaze to the blue, blue sky. He couldn’t help grinning. “It was so fucking good.” 

“Yeah?” Sami stretched out next to Olli and poked him in the ribs. “Spill!”

So Olli did. Sami had questions about Sid’s ass and his hands and what it was like kissing Sid’s playoff fuzz, and Olli could feel his face burning, but he answered them all anyway, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt. Fumblingly he tried to explain how intense it was, how almost every time they fucked there was at least one moment when he wanted to cry because he just _felt_ so much. He almost expected Sami to laugh at that, once he’d said it, but Sami didn’t.

“And what about the heat sex?” Sami asked eventually. “Is it like they say?”

“I don’t want to talk about the heat sex,” Olli said, mood chilled.

“Sorry,” Sami said. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s fine,” Olli said. “I just—I can’t talk about it.”

“But what you’re saying is, bond sex was the best sex of your life.”

“Yeah.”

“Fucking tough act to follow.”

“Yeah,” Olli agreed, a little morose.

\--

On the first of July, Jussi Jokinen signed a four-year contract with the Florida Panthers. Olli managed to stop crying after only five minutes, which his bond therapist would probably congratulate him for, and then he called Jussi. After the congratulations and a few minutes dissection of the Panthers’ top six for the coming season, Jussi said, “You can always call me. When you’re in town, you’ll have to come over for dinner at our new house. Salla and Jaana and Liisa will be glad to see you.”

“I will,” Olli said, warmed a little by the thought.

They talked a little about the new Pens coach and GM, both hired while Olli had been busy puking his bond out. “You’ll like Rutherford,” Jussi said. “He was in Carolina while I was there. A good guy.” 

Suttsy had texted Olli about the hire right away. His estimation was less positive: **the fucker will probably trade me again.**

“I guess we’ll see,” Olli said.

\--

Olli had offers from friends for midsummer. He turned them all down. The morning of midsummer’s eve, he and his parents loaded several weeks of supplies into the family car and drove up to the lake cottage. His father went to start a fire in the smoke sauna right away, and he checked on it every so often. “You know your Uncle Artturi burned his down a few years ago,” his father reminded Olli.

Olli’s father had mentioned this fact several dozen times on every family lake trip Olli had ever been on; _a few years ago_ had been before Olli was even born. “I remember,” Olli agreed, and went to go help his mom cut birch twigs for whisks and branches to hang around the door frame.

Antti and his girlfriend Brita arrived in the afternoon, weighed down with beer and vodka. After a while Antti joined Olli in the lake. “You look good,” Antti said. He considered that a moment and amended, “Better.”

Olli responded by splashing Antti directly in the face. Before Antti could even reach him, Olli yelled, “My shoulder! You can’t hurt my shoulder!”

“You are such a fucking brat,” Antti said, and hauled Olli under the surface. 

They dragged themselves out of the water eventually to eat grilled herring and potatoes and cold salad. Olli stretched his legs out in front of his chair, belly pleasantly full, skin still cool from the water. Antti was right; Olli felt good. Better than he had since training camp, or maybe before. 

He slipped his phone out of his pocket and snapped a photo of Antti, talking around a mouthful of fish. Then Olli’s father, scraping flakes of char off the grill with the lake behind him, blue and shining. Then his mom, chatting with Brita about Brita’s cousin, who worked just down the street from Olli’s mom’s office in Jyväskylä.

“Who’s that for?” Antti asked, nodding at Olli’s phone.

“Nothing,” Olli said, snapping another photo of Antti just to be obnoxious. “Nobody.” But it was a lie, he realized as he put his phone away again.

Well. He’d worry about that later.

He took photos of the sauna, too, while his father emptied the ashes and the last of the embers out of the bottom and threw water on top to clear the soot from the rocks. Then finally, finally the sauna was ready. They all stripped and took brief dips in the lake, in preparation; they crowded inside and closed the door.

Settling on a bench next to his dad, Olli bowed his head and let the löyly begin to soak into his pores. The steam of American saunas, even the löyly of the house sauna in Jyväskylä couldn’t begin to compare. Every breath grounded Olli a little more: _Home. Home. Home._

Olli could have cycled between sauna and lake forever, but eventually his shoulder began to ache. He gave himself a last thorough rinsing in the lake, and then he put his sling back on and went to watch Antti build a bonfire: not a big one, just enough to warm themselves by. The sun hovered a little ways above the horizon, and a breeze had picked up off the lake. It was nearly midnight. 

It hit Olli again like it had that first day at the airport: _I wish Sid could see_. He swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. He wondered where Sid was now. California? Nova Scotia?

He took a few photos of the bonfire and a couple more of the lake, though the camera couldn’t really capture the golden, late-evening quality of the light. He couldn’t have sent them to Sid even if he wanted, because reception at the lake was spotty as hell. Still, it was probably cheating, now that he knew who he was taking them for. He was supposed to let his attachment wither until it snapped, and this was the opposite of that.

He didn’t give a shit, he realized.


	10. Chapter 10

“You should meet my girlfriend,” Sami said, apropos of nothing. It was the first time Olli had run with him in a while. Olli’s parents were still up at the cottage and would be for a couple more weeks, but Olli had caught a ride back to the city with Antti and Brita. He had training to do.

He waited until he’d caught his breath a little more, and he said, “I should?”

“Yeah. I think you’d like her. She’s so fucking hot, man.”

Olli failed to see what good that did _Olli_. He laughed. “Sure.”

Vuokko had a free hour that day, it turned out, and Olli wasn’t doing anything. They met her at a lunch room down the street from her office. She was a beta, too, long-legged and wiry, with dark hair and high cheekbones. “She runs long distance,” Sami explained. “Which is why I run with you instead.”

“ _And_ because I have a job,” Vuokko said, stealing the cucumber out of Sami’s sandwich. “Unlike some people.”

She was only casually into hockey, and only because of Sami. She mostly cared about public health (her career) and running (“My hobby, my obsession—it depends on who you ask”). She seemed nice, and Olli certainly didn’t mind meeting her, considering that Sami sounded kind of serious about her. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was supposed to be getting more out of this introduction, and he had no idea what it was.

Then Sami turned to Vuokko and said, “So what do you think, babe?”

She looked Olli over, a little smile lurking at the corner of her mouth. “I’m in.”

Olli eyed them both. “In for what?”

“You have to get back to work, right?” Sami asked Vuokko.

She checked her phone. “Yeah, it’s about that time. I’ll see you guys later, okay?” She gave Olli a wave and Sami a peck on the lips, and then she left.

“In for _what_ ,” Olli asked, suspicion growing. 

“Come on,” Sami said, getting to his feet and picking up his lunch tray. Olli followed, calling Sami some choice names under his breath. Finally, once they were in Sami’s car with the doors closed, Sami said, “So what would you think about coming and spending the night at our place?”

“I have PT first thing tomorrow,” Olli said blankly. It was the first thing that came into his head.

“It doesn’t have to be tonight. Just, you know, some night. A movie, drinks, see where it goes?”

“See where _what_ —oh. What? Are you—what are you saying?” 

Patiently, Sami said, “I’m saying, do you want to come hang at my place with me and Vuokko and maybe have sex with us.”

Olli stared at him. “You want to lend your girlfriend out to me?” Then he winced. That really wasn’t quite what he meant to say.

Sami didn’t seem bothered. “I’m not saying come have sex with her. I’m saying, have sex with us.”

Olli stared some more. Sami looked steadily back. His post-shower hair had dried every which way, and he hadn’t shaved for a bit, so there was reddish-brown scruff along the bottom of his chin. He’d already put some summer muscle on his arms, evident below the sleeves of his t-shirt. 

Olli had never in his life considered sex with Sami, but he was considering it now. It sounded like maybe not a completely terrible idea. Still, “I don’t get it.”

Sami shrugged. “Look, you told me about you and Sid. It sounded fucking intense, man. Maybe you’d like to have some sex just for fun. No strings, no commitments. And no feelings.”

“What’s wrong with feelings?” Olli asked, a little defensive.

“You tell me.” Sami looked him dead in the eye. Olli blinked first. “They sound like a hell of a lot of work, is all I’m saying. And we’re both betas, so, you know. It’d be different than with—other people you’ve been with.”

Olli chewed that over for a bit. “You really want to?” he said finally. “And Vuokko, too?”

“It was Vuokko’s idea,” Sami said. 

Olli’s eyebrows rose. “I never even met her until today.”

“Well.” Sami shifted a little in the driver’s seat. A dull flush stole up his neck. “She might have suggested it after the sixth or seventh time I called you a cute kid.”

“Oh my god,” Olli said faintly, unsure if he should be annoyed or delighted. He felt a little pink.

“Shut up.” If Sami were any more sheepish, he’d have been saying bää. “You only get to chirp me about it if you say yes.”

“Yes,” Olli said.

\--

Olli had some second thoughts later. He no longer felt like someone had scooped his guts out with an oar every time he thought of Sid, but Olli’d gotten enough perspective, being home, to recognize that he was not even close to being over him. But he didn’t owe Sid anything, he told himself. There was no one to stop him if he wanted to have some fun with a friend.

And Olli did want to. No strings, no feelings: it appealed more the longer he thought about it. So he didn’t call it off, the way his fingers itched to after he first got home from lunch that day. He texted with Sami, and he gave his mom a head’s up. Finally, on Friday night, he put on nice jeans and a henley and drove over to Sami’s flat—a fancy place on Sami’s fancy NHL salary.

“Nice,” Olli said, admiring the living room’s view of the water. Midsummer was just a couple weeks past, and there were still hours and hours of daylight left.

“I like it,” Sami said. Then, louder, “Don’t you think so, babe? Nice view?”

“Mm,” Vuokko said, looking Olli over. It was only then that he realized Sami was looking at him, too, and not the water.

“Hi,” Olli said to Vuokko. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He didn’t know what to do next. He didn’t know if this was going to work at _all_.

“Movie,” Sami said, herding Olli towards the couch with a hand on Olli’s shoulder. “Beer?”

“Of course,” Olli said.

Sami disappeared into the next room while Vuokko pulled the room’s many shades. Olli sat on the couch in his sock feet, wondering what he was doing there. He distracted himself from that by looking at Vuokko. She was long everywhere, muscles lean, athletic in a different way than Olli ever saw in the locker room. She caught him looking, and she winked. Olli flushed and looked away, fighting a smile now.

Sami returned with beer and rye crisps. “So we thought, action or horror or something funny.” He set down the snacks and splayed three movies for Olli to pick from. Olli picked the comedy. It didn’t turn out to matter, because Sami settled on one side of him and Vuokko lounged on the other, knees bent to keep her bare feet out of Olli’s lap. Sami was a hot bulk against Olli’s side. 

Eventually, like, gravity, Vuokko’s feet ended up _in_ Olli’s lap. Almost without thinking about it, Olli closed his hand around it and began massaging the arch. Vuokko hummed in appreciation, but after a minute or so, she said, “You can go further up, if you want,” Vuokko said. She wriggled her foot, bumping against Olli’s crotch with her heel. He hissed. “Oh, shit, sorry,” Vuokko said, sitting up.

“No, uh. You’re—fine?” Olli sounded a little breathless, even to himself.

“Oh _really_ ,” Vuokko said. She relaxed back against the arm of the couch and pressed her heel ever so gently against his dick. His involuntary breath embarrassed him a little until he noticed how pleased she looked.

“Hey,” Sami said. Dimly Olli was aware of the TV going dark. Then Sami’s hand cupped Olli’s cheek, turning him until he faced Sami, close enough that Olli’s eyes crossed. “Okay?” Sami asked.

“Okay,” Olli breathed.

Kissing Sami was nothing like kissing Sid. There were still lips and tongue, teeth and wet heat and Sami’s palm against Olli’s jaw. When Sami finally drew back, Olli’s breath was faster and his dick stiffer than when he’d started. It was good, and Sami looked so exceedingly pleased with himself that Olli couldn’t help but smile at him, but it was—easy. No oceans had crashed over Olli between when the kiss began and ended. 

Olli shifted a little ways down the couch so that he could rest his forehead against Sami’s shoulder, just to breathe. Sami smelled mostly of aftershave, a little sweat: nothing that tried to burrow into Olli’s gut and stay there. He didn’t know what to do with this. He couldn’t think about what it meant. Anyway, they’d said no feelings. Olli put it all in a box marked _Later_ and moved to kiss Sami again.

Vuokko interrupted eventually, wanting her turn. She kissed Olli, her hair brushing against his neck, and then she crawled into Olli’s lap so she could kiss Sami, too, one of her hands still resting lightly on Olli’s crotch. 

Olli had arrived at Sami’s with only a vague, confused idea of how threesomes went, especially with two betas, one of whom told Olli point blank that his alpha dick would not fit in her. It turned out this meant a lot of kissing and a lot of hands, and Sami’s mouth around Olli’s dick and Olli’s tongue up Vuokko’s pussy while her thighs trembled on either side of him. Finally Olli sprawled in an armchair, dick lax in his hand but quickly recovering, while Sami pushed into Vuokko and moved above her in long rolling thrusts until he took them both over the edge.

Sami had collapsed on top of Vuokko; now she shoved at him until he rolled onto the floor. She pushed to her feet in one long, languid move. “Fuck, I need a fucking shower,” she said. She walked over to Olli buck-naked and pressed a kiss to his cheek. She smelled like sex, now. They all did. 

Olli watched her go. By the time he dragged his eyes from her ass, Sami’s condom had disappeared, and Sami was sitting on the floor, leaning back on his hands. “Good?” he said.

Olli took a moment to take stock of himself. He was a little bit carpet-burned—the cost of floor sex—but so relaxed he could’ve melted into the chair. “Good,” he agreed.

\--

“What was it like when you got bonded to Dad?” Olli asked.

His mom pooched her lower lip out in thought. She ladled more water onto the rocks, sending a new burst of löyly into the air. “That’s a big question. I’m not sure where to start.”

Olli didn’t, either, really. He tried to gather his thoughts together, but they felt so much bigger than words. “Was it nice?” he said finally.

His mom smiled, just a little sly but plenty enough for Olli’s horrified imagination. “It was very nice.”

“Mom,” Olli complained. He exhaled gustily and gave up.

His mom didn’t let him. “This is about Sid.”

Olli hung his head. “I guess, yeah.”

“Your father and I had been courting for almost two years. We knew how much we liked each other. We’d slept together already.”

“Mom!”

She continued on, undeterred. “And we knew we were compatible. We could feel the signs, and the doctor confirmed it. So sharing a heat together felt very natural. And afterwards, mmmm.” Olli’d had no idea a hum could be so suggestive. “But it was different for you, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. It was—really hard? I didn’t even notice how hard it was, I guess. I wanted to keep it,” Olli confessed in a rush. “We almost—we were going to keep it. Sid agreed and everything.”

“But you changed your mind,” his mom said neutrally.

“Yeah.”

“Are you glad that you did?”

Olli took a deep breath of hot, wet air. “I think so.”

His mom hummed and put more water on the rocks.

\--

Olli sat on his bed with his phone and pulled up that one brief conversation with Sid from weeks ago. He read it over again a half dozen times. He thought about the smoke sauna, the bonfire up at the lake, about Sami and Vuokko, about Antti telling him he looked better. He typed out, _I hope you’re okay, too._

A few minutes later, the response came: _I am, thanks._

Olli’s heart squeezed. He held his phone tighter, and there was a dangerous moment when he almost sent Sid a photo of the lake. But Olli knew that he wouldn’t stop at just one, and if Sid was feeling good now—or okay, at least—then Olli wasn’t going to jeopardize that for anything. Resolutely he put the phone aside.

But if he wasn’t sending Sid any pictures, that didn’t stop Olli from taking them. When he and Sami stopped to stretch, he took photos of the trail and of Sami, red-faced and obliging the camera with a thumb’s up. He took pictures of Jyväskylä: the waterfront, the downtown, the bus stops and lunch rooms. He took pictures of lunch. He didn’t know what Sid would like, so he documented all of it.

He spent another night with Sami and Vuokko. It was nice. He woke with Vuokko at his back, her arm draped over his waist. Olli drifted for a while, thinking he ought to take a picture of the view out Sami’s living room, and then he woke up a little more and decided that would be weird.

The third time Sami invited him over, Olli turned him down. “I like you guys,” Olli added, fumbling to explain, but Sami raised a hand to silence him.

“It’s cool. It’s what we said, right? No strings, no feelings.”

“Yeah,” Olli agreed, relieved.

“It was fun, though, right?” Sami cocked an eyebrow ridiculously.

“It was really fun.”

“Good.” Sami elbowed Olli in a friendly way, and then he said, “So, lunch?”

\--

The light changed. The leaves began to turn. The air flirted with a chill, now and again. In PT, Olli regained full range of motion in his shoulder and started focusing on strengthening it. He’d been given many stern warnings to be careful with the shoulder, and progress felt miserably slow, but gradually he could begin to tell the difference.

His birthday came around. It was on a Friday, so after his mom and dad got off work they all drove up to the cottage. Antti and Brita would arrive the next morning. It was too late in the day to start the smoke sauna, but they roasted sausages at the fire pit, and Ollie went for a swim. 

Before he went to sleep, he checked his phone one last time and found a message from Sid: _happy birthday_.

Olli smiled helplessly at the screen. After a moment he tried to stop, but it was no use. He gave up and sent back a smiley.

\--

The day after his birthday, the Pens called. He knew they’d been keeping in touch with his physical therapist, and now they wanted him to come back to Pittsburgh so they could oversee the next phase of his recovery. _You’re looking good_ , they said. _Maybe we can get you on the ice opening night._

If they thought Olli needed an incentive, they’d picked a good one. He talked to his parents and bought plane tickets. He spent one last evening in the family sauna with his mom, breathing in the same löyly he had when they’d first moved into this house, when he was ten.

“Are you ready to go back, sweetie?” his mom asked.

Olli closed his eyes. “Of course.”

\--

Olli sent Sid one more text while he waited at the gate in Helsinki. _back in town tomorrow_ , he said, and turned off his phone.

\--

Olli walked out of baggage claim into an evening still clinging to the day’s heat. Pittsburgh was still all green, unlike Jyväskylä. He took a cab out to Sewickley and wished fervently that he’d held his ground about parking his car in the airport’s long-term parking, but Sid had been scandalized. _Do you have any idea how expensive that is? You’re still on your ELC. Just leave it at my place, it’s fine._

So Olli had. Now it meant one more leg between the airplane and the hotel bed he yearned for with every fiber of his jetlagged body. He could feel the cab driver giving him the eye as they pulled up to Sid’s place, but Olli pointedly ignored it.

Sid’s house looked—the same. The iron wrought gate across his driveway and the peaked roof of the entryway, just visible beyond it: the same. Absently Olli paid the driver and made sure the guy was gone, and then he punched the familiar security code to get into the gate. The key tucked away on his Pittsburgh keyring opened the front door just like it has always had—sticking a bit—and then Olli walked into Sid’s house. 

It was very still. Stuffy, from being closed all summer, though Olli knew Sid had a housekeeper come check in on it every so often. Olli punched in another security code, and then he shut the door behind him and stood in the foyer, where normally he’d be conscientiously taking off his shoes.

It didn’t smell of Sid in any immediate way. All Olli could catch were Sid-scents soaked so thoroughly into walls and carpets and the seams of furniture that the house would never be free of them. Of course, even if Sid were standing in it right this moment, Olli wouldn’t be able to scent his feelings anymore. 

Rather than give that thought any further time, Olli walked through the house to the garage. His car was in the third bay down. Sid had had to move a bunch of shit to give Olli room, which Olli had teased him about at the time. It was all piled up against the back wall now.

Abruptly, Olli didn’t want to be here, in this house that used to be his and Sid’s and now didn’t feel like it belonged to either of them. He checked his tires and gas, just to make sure nothing dire had happened during the summer. He reset the house and gate alarms. He drove out onto the street as the last, orange vestiges of sunset filtered through the trees.

He arrived safely at the hotel, crashed face-first onto the bed, and slept for ten hours.

\--

The dreamy, not-quite-there feeling persisted over the next few days. Only a handful of guys were back in town—guys with kids in school, mostly. The dim underground halls at Consol and the well-lit halls above were nearly empty.

Olli asked the Pens front office for a realtor. No fucking way was he spending another season in a hotel, and whatever happened with Sid—well, Olli couldn’t just assume, and anyway, no matter _what_ happened with Sid, Olli thought maybe a place of his own would be good. For a while.

Dr. Vyas sent Olli back to the bond specialist to have his hormone levels checked. Three days later, Vyas called Olli in for a physical and gave him his test results. “There are only trace amounts of bonding hormones left in your blood. Congratulations, Olli, you’re a free agent now.” 

Olli finished the physical in a daze. Maybe Vyas noticed. “Just go on and put your clothes back on, and you’re free to go.” Then he left Olli alone on the exam table. The room smelled of several different cleaners, there were black smudges on the tan tile floor, and Olli was unbonded. He gripped his hands together and repeated it to himself a couple more times: _unbonded_.

It wasn’t a surprise. He’d felt good, the latter part of the summer. He still missed Sid, but not like he had at first, in his bones. Still, the finality of it: Olli didn’t know quite what to do with that. It was over, he supposed. He could walk out and shut the door behind him, and he didn’t have to think about the bond with Sid ever again.

Like hell.

On his way out of the building, he ran into two men whom he only recognized from photos: the new coach and GM. “Olli, hi,” said the taller man, Johnston. Slight, sandy-haired, of course a beta. He was calm with a quiet manner, like Bylsma. He shook Olli’s hand and told him they were going to do good things together. Olli made agreeable noises.

Rutherford was an omega. Olli stared at the man in shock when he finally realized the significance of the faint whiffs he’d been catching. Rutherford smiled up at Olli like he knew exactly what Olli was thinking about, and he gave him a grandfatherly pat on the hand. “Not what you were expecting?” he asked.

Olli’s brain was frozen. So was his mouth, for better or worse.

Rutherford just patted his hand again and smiled some more. “I don’t think there’s going to be trouble between us of any kind, do you?”

Olli knew a lifeline when he saw it. “Uh, no. No. Definitely no trouble.”

He texted Sid about it at lunch: _Rutherford’s an omega. Did you know?_

 _Yeah_ , Sid replied. Of course he did. Olli would too if he’d bothered to look it up. 

Olli bit his lip. He’d talked back and forth with Sid a few times in the last few days. Olli was in Pittsburgh, and training camp started in a week and a half; if the bond wasn’t thoroughly broken by now, they were fucked either way, so he’d figured a little texting didn’t matter much. _When are you getting into town_ , Olli asked.

The answer came almost immediately: _Friday. See you on sat at consol?_

Olli stared. Saturday was in three days. He had to put the phone face down and just breathe for a little while.

\--

They were the longest three days of Olli’s life, probably.

\--

Olli dreamed of those last days when he could kiss Sid anytime they were alone, palm Sid’s generous ass, feel Sid’s smile against his neck. When he woke, he had an ache in his chest and filthy, jizz-stiff sheets, and it was Saturday.

Olli got to Consol earlier than he’d reasonably expect Sid to be there. He started in on his workout, but it was hard to focus on form and breathing when any moment Sid might appear in the doorway. Or maybe he wouldn’t; maybe he’d let Olli find him instead.

Somehow he got through all his sets, took a shower, got dressed again. He went to the trainers’ room for Stewie’s daily inspection of Olli’s recovering shoulder. By the time Stewie finished, Olli was hungry enough that as he approached the players’ lounge all he could think about were sandwiches and protein shakes. Just as he was turning the corner, he heard a laugh he knew, that sometimes he’d ached for over the summer.

There Sid was, bow-legged as always and thick with summer muscle, dark curls escaping from under his backwards baseball cap. Olli’s mouth went dry. For a moment he couldn’t move, like his shoes had been sewn to the floor. 

Then Sid met his gaze, and the spell was broken. Cautiously Olli walked into the lounge, feeling Sid’s eyes on him the whole way. Vaguely Olli was aware of some other guys, too—Kuni?—but they faded away as Olli got closer. He stopped two feet from Sid, who was standing stock-still. “Hi,” Olli croaked. 

“Hey, Olli.” Sid still wasn’t moving, and did that mean that he wasn’t happy to see Olli? That he didn’t care? That he did care, but he didn’t want the other guys to see?

He’d answered every one of Olli’s texts.

Taking another step forward, Olli opened his arms. Sid stepped into them without even a pause. “Hey, Olli,” he said again. His fingers curled in the fabric Olli’s t-shirt. 

“Hey.” Olli closed his eyes and breathed in what of Sid he still could, the familiar scents of his shampoo and aftershave. 

They couldn’t stand like that forever. Someone eventually cleared their throat, and Olli reluctantly opened his eyes and took a step back. Sid searched his face for a moment, gaze unreadable. He squeezed Olli’s shoulder. “Do you want to come by for dinner? We could catch up.”

“Okay,” Olli said. 

“I could cook out. Maybe shish kebabs?”

“Okay,” Olli repeated. Did Sid think he needed to be convinced?

“Awesome. I’ll catch you later, eh?” Sid gave Olli a last slap on the shoulder and turned away and down the hall, towards whatever captain thing he needed to do next.

Fuck, he’d put on muscle _everywhere_.

\--

This time when Olli walked through Sid’s front door, the house smelled like Sid, immediate and present. Olli followed a hint of worchestershire sauce and garlic to the kitchen, and there Sid was in a cargo shorts and an old, worn t-shirt, inspecting his marinating kebab meat. His hair fluffed around his ears and stuck up a little at the top.

There was an ache in Olli’s throat; he couldn’t have begun to guess which of his roiling feelings had put it there. “Hey,” he said, a little bit of gravel in his voice.

Sid straightened and smiled, so wide and bright. “Hey.”

Olli followed his instincts and went for a hug, his second of the day, and Sid didn’t hesitate. Something in Olli relaxed, instant and instinctive, although this kind of thing was supposed to have faded with the bond. When Olli let go and stepped back, Sid was still smiling, softer but just as warm. “You look good,” Olli said, a little breathless. It felt really, really inadequate.

Sid’s lips quirked upwards: not a smile yet, but progress. “You, too.”

“How’s the wrist?” It’d been on Olli’s mind all afternoon.

“Good. Real good.” Sid held it up and rotated it easily, pain-free.

A grin broke out on Olli’s face. He couldn’t help it. “Good. Um, Can I help? Is there something to cut up?”

Sid had already cut up everything, but there were kebabs to be put together with peppers and onions and mushrooms and the marinated chunks of beef. He and Sid did them together, side by side at the counter, elbows grazing every so often. 

“So what do you think of Hornqvist?” Sid asked, and that got them through the rest of the kebab-making and on into the grilling. Olli sat in a deck chair with a beer and paid as much attention to Sid’s forearms as to his thoughts on what Hornqvist would bring to the power play. Then the kebabs were ready to eat, and Olli found he was starving.

They ate out on the deck. Sid asked easy questions while they ate, like how Olli’s shoulder was, how he’d furnished his apartment. “How was your summer?” Olli asked finally, when the he’d finished his last skewer.

Sid gave Olli a sidelong glance. “Do you want the company answer or the real answer?”

Olli was not one hundred percent sure what a company answer was. “The real one.”

“Well. It sucked, mostly. At first it was the drugs, you know, the bond. And my wrist, that was obnoxious. And then—” He shrugged. “Then I just missed you.”

“Oh,” Olli said softly. Sid looked up, and Olli shook his head. “I thought—it was good to be home. I got to see my family and I think—I learned some stuff, I think. I guess I thought it would be good for you, too.” He knew so little of Sid’s life, those four months, and he’d filled all the blanks in with his own. It seemed silly now.

“That’s good, then. I’m—I’m glad. That it wasn’t hard for you.”

“But I’m glad you missed me,” Olli said, before he thought about it. And then the words were just out there, and he had to follow them up. “I missed you, too.”

“Yeah?” Sid said, a little bit hopeful.

Olli felt like his heart would burst. “I took a bunch of pictures for you. Stuff I wanted to show you. Do want to see them?”

Sid’s smile gentled into something Olli wanted to kiss. Well, more than he’d wanted to kiss Sid’s mouth all the other times he’d looked at it that day. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

It was too bright outside. They carried the plates and kebab dishes into the house and then settled on the couch together, inches apart. As Olli got settled, his knee knocked into Sid’s knee. Olli flushed and ducked his head, and then he realized with dawning wonder that Sid looked a little pink, too. 

Instead of thinking any more about kissing Sid, Olli navigated to the first photos he took, out at the lake. “This is at midsummer,” Olli said. “It’s like—it’s a holiday? Do you have midsummer?” When Sid shook his head, Olli said, “It’s the best. Everybody goes up to the lake, and there’s a fire pit and we start the smoke sauna. Have you ever been in a real smoke sauna?”

Sid shook his head again, smiling a little now.

“I could show you sometime. If you wanted to, I mean. If you…” Olli trailed off, voice fallen to a mumble. 

Into Olli’s awkward silence, Sid said, “I went to Helsinki in 2004, for World Juniors. But there wasn’t a lot of time to go check stuff out. It’d be cool to go again sometime.”

Olli tamped down hard on a lot of suddenly-kindled feeling and swiped to the next picture. “This is my brother Antti,” he said, and Sid peered closer. He kept looking and making interested noises until at some point, midway through July, Olli realized how long they’d been sitting there. “You don’t have to look at all of them right now,” he said, flushing. 

He reached for the button to turn off the screen, but Sid caught his wrist. “I like seeing them,” Sid said quietly. His eyes were wide, earnest, and it came to Olli that Sid was Sid was holding himself very still and choosing each word very carefully, like there was a lot at stake here. 

Olli’s heart beat harder. Hope was a fluid, murky thing, like an eel swimming through a cold black sea. He couldn’t afford to pay much attention to it. 

Sid cleared his throat. “You said you learned some things, while you were back home. What did you mean?”

“Oh. Um. A lot of things?” Olli took a deep breath. He felt Sid listening, maybe as hard as he’d listened to Olli ever. Olli didn’t want to fuck that up. He took a little longer to collect himself, to try and place exactly what he’d meant when he’d told Sid that. “The bond was harder than I thought. I didn’t realize. I kind of stopped—talking to people?”

Sid nodded. “I wondered about that. It was probably hard enough even before the bond. Everyone was so much older.”

“Yeah. And I was—really worried about you, I guess. About us. And about hockey, too. Even before the bond, but it got worse. I don’t know.”

“That’s a lot of pressure,” Sid said, neutral.

Olli nodded. “Anyway, it was better when I was home. I got to spend time with my family, and I—” Olli snuck a look at Sid’s face, patient and interested. Olli hoped he’d look the same in a few moments. “I slept with someone. A couple people. My friend and his girlfriend? Betas. They asked me. My friend—” Sid didn’t need to know who it was until Olli knew for sure how Sid was going to take this. “—he said maybe it’d be good to just have fun.”

“Was it fun?” Sid asked. He looked fond instead of pissed.

“Yeah. It was nice. After a couple of times I realized I mostly thought about you, so then I stopped. It didn’t seem fair to—to my friend.”

Sid nodded to himself. “Good. I’m glad it was good. For you.”

Emboldened, Olli asked, “What about you? What did you do this summer?”

Sid shrugged. “Training. Saw my family. Same as usual—I mean, once I started feeling better. There weren’t any smoke saunas, or anything cool like that.” He threw Olli a cautious grin.

“You could tell me about it anyway.”

“Yeah?” Sid said doubtfully. “I swear, it’s not that interesting.”

A peculiar realization crept over Olli, very slowly: sometimes, Sid was kind of dumb. Olli tucked the revelation away to consider later. “I don’t care if it’s boring,” he said.

“Well, uh.” Sid looked at his hands. Fuck, his shoulders were big now. “Some high-altitude training with Matty Duchene. I hung out with Mackinnon some, back home. Hung out with my sister. She, um. She’s an alpha. You knew that, right?”

Olli had seen a sign or two in the stands, suggesting ugly things about omega Sidney Crosby and his alpha sister. “Yeah.”

Sid obviously wasn’t thinking of the signs. His smile was fond, inward-looking. “It was really good to see her. I don’t get to, much.”

“Do you have pictures?” Olli asked. He knew what Taylor looked like, but that wasn’t the point.

Sid did have pictures. The first few were of plates in restaurants, because apparently Sid liked taking photos of his food, though Olli couldn’t remember ever seeing him do it. An offseason thing, maybe. Sid spent five minutes describing every detail of a dish involving wine and Brussels sprouts, his eyes lighting up.

Olli’s first impression had been correct: Sid looked good. Not just built from a summer of weight training, but more relaxed, his smile nearer the surface. Olli hadn’t even realized how much strain and worry Sid had been carrying in the spring until now that it was gone.

They got to pictures of other things eventually, mostly scenery, occasionally a person. Several fish Sid caught in his lake in Nova Scotia. A few photos of Sid and friends at his birthday party. “I told you, this stuff is pretty boring,” Sid said. “I wasn’t really thinking of you when I took them, sorry.”

“You remembered my birthday, though,” Olli said. The fact that Sid had a summer birthday, too, had completely slipped his mind. 

Sid laughed, shaking his head. “I felt bad about texting you. I know we weren’t supposed to.”

“I liked that you did,” Olli said. 

“Yeah?” Sid’s gaze was curious, assessing. 

“Yeah.”

“Awesome.” Sid smiled, a quiet, private expression only for Olli. Olli didn’t kiss him—Sid started making noises about doing dishes—but for the first time, Olli believed that he might get to again, someday.

\--

Olli wasn’t bonded anymore. He had the test results to prove it. Also the lack of headaches and the nausea-free sex with Sami and Vuokko. An accidental brush against Sid’s arm in the locker room was only warm and a little ticklish, and he couldn’t tell Sid’s feelings just by sniffing him anymore. Olli was definitely, completely bond-free.

Sometimes, it didn’t seem to make one fucking bit of difference. Olli turned and saw Sid in the hallway, eyes sparkling, hands wide and expressive as he explained something to Kuni, and Olli ached with wanting him. He found Sid in his stall, hunched over his skates as he loosened the laces and laughing at some smartass thing Geno had said, and Olli hungered for that warm breath on his face and mouth.

And then each time Sid caught sight of Olli, he’d offer a cautious smile, and Olli wanted to kiss it all over again. 

Olli had plenty to do: off-ice workouts and on-ice workouts and meetings with the trainers. Still, there was a part of him waiting, quiet and watchful.

\--

The team played its first preseason game. Olli watched from the press box with all the other scratches. He started out by Bortz, but he had to pee at intermission, and when he got back Desi had taken his seat, and the nearest empty seat was next to Sid.

“Hey,” Sid said, with a tip of his chin. “So what about that new D the Jackets drafted? Werenski?”

Olli could talk to Sid about hockey for hours. He’d kind of forgotten that, over the summer, too busy thinking about dumb shit like how Sid’s eyes sparkled when he laughed and the way his skin tasted. But now Olli remembered how easy it was as he and Sid picked over Werenski’s scouting report.

The conversation fell into a lull when the Pens went on a power play. On the other side of it, after Thomas Griess froze the puck, Sid said, “Hey, there’s some shit I want to talk to you about.” 

“Okay,” Olli said cautiously.

“Not here,” Sid said. “Are you doing anything after the game? Or like tomorrow, or later in the week, that’s fine.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Olli said. He paused. “I mean, I was going to work out, but if Stewie catches me he’ll yell at me for going too hard.” It’d happened twice already in the ten days Olli had been there.

Sid laughed softly. “You gotta let the shoulder heal, Olli.” 

“I let it heal all summer,” Olli grumbled.

Sid turned toward back toward the ice, smiling. “I’ll bring sandwiches,” he said.

\--

Olli opened his front door, and for a moment he could only look around his living room in dismay. Then he got to work putting away enough stuff so that the place looked like a marginally functional adult lived there. Hopefully.

He’d gotten the worst of it tucked out of sight when he heard Sid’s heavy tread on the stairs. Olli’s doorbell rang, and on the other side of it was Sid. He’d switched to t-shirt and jeans, and he still looked so fucking good. He also looked a little unsure of himself. “I brought the sandwiches,” he said, showing Olli the paper sack.

“Okay,” Olli said. “Uh, come in?” He waved his hand at the living room. “It’s just the TV and couch now,” Olli said. Sid nodded, giving the whole room a careful survey. Olli led the way to the table at the end of the kitchen and was profoundly grateful he’d gone ahead and made that particular purchase. 

Olli was hungry again, as usual. They sat kitty-corner at the table, like old times. Every time their knees brushed together, Olli could feel himself turning pink. They focused on their sandwiches and didn’t talk, but when Olli had finished his—cucumber and all—Sid said, “Hey.” The one word was all it took to wake Olli out of his pleasant post-meal daze. Sid was looking down at his hands, blunt and capable, so sure with the puck and with other things, too. “You asked me what we’d be like, after the bond. If we’d be friends, or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Olli said. His throat felt a little tight.

“I thought about that a lot, over the summer, trying to figure out how I felt. What I wanted. And I thought I had a pretty good idea, coming back, but I wanted to make sure. I hope you didn’t feel like, I dunno. Like I left you hanging, the last few days. It’s kind of felt like you—but I might be reading too much into it. So I guess I just wanted to check in?” He met Olli’s eyes, like he was searching for a sign. “No pressure, obviously. We’ve both been through a lot, and whatever—however you feel, it’s fine, okay?”

Sid hadn’t quite gotten around to asking a question, but it was in his eyes, clear and unmistakable. At least, Olli didn’t think he was mistaking it, not with all the little nudges and smiles and moments of Sid’s attention over the past week and a half. Olli took a breath, and he said, “I missed you a lot, Sid. All summer, not just at the beginning. I know you thought maybe the things we felt were because of the bond. But they did all the tests, you know? The bond is gone. Everything that’s left is just—me.” 

Softly, Sid said, “Since that first day in that fucking quiet room, almost all I’ve thought about is you.” Olli looked up, finally. Sid’s eyes were dark and wet. “You were my hero, you know?” Olli scoffed, but Sid shook his head. “No, you were. I don’t even know how to describe how awful that day was, but it wasn’t when you were there.”

“That was hormones,” Olli pointed out. 

Sid didn’t even pause. “I talked to Jussi later. He told me how much you didn’t want to come back, how upset you were. But you did come back.”

“I had to.” Stewie wouldn’t have let him get out of it.

Sid shrugged that away, too. “Anyway, we got out of there, and—it felt like the next four months were about you. Because I was worried or guilty or—or other things. Because I cared about you so much. By the end it was mostly about that. Or because I wanted to sleep with you.” There was a flash of humor in Sid’s eyes. “It was really convenient that you always let me have the first shower in the morning, when we were on the road.”

“Oh,” Olli said faintly.

“Anyway.” Sid cleared his throat. “Even this summer, I always—but I want you to be happy more.” He reached for Olli’s hand and folded his fingers around it. Olli’s breath caught.

“I think I could be happy with you,” Olli said cautiously.

“Yeah?” Sid’s grip tightened. He met Olli’s eyes, his gaze open and brightening with hope. 

“I mean, maybe it wouldn’t work out? I haven’t courted someone before, not something serious, I don’t—” Olli paused to take a breath. “I don’t know for sure. But I’d like to try.”

Sid bypassed all the disclaimers. “I’d be happy with you, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Sid gave Olli a slightly watery smile.

“So you want to?” Olli said, still unable to believe. “Try, I mean?” 

“Yes,” Sid said firmly. “If you—yes.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Olli said. For a moment he could only stare at Sid, incredulous with joy. Slowly the realization crept over him that he could touch now. He was allowed. He cupped Sid’s cheek and leaned in. The angle was awkward as hell, but Olli kissed Sid anyway. It felt like the first time he’d ever done it. It kind of was, he supposed. Sid mouthed back, breath shaky. Olli tangled his fingers in Sid’s hair and murmured, “Fucking finally.”

Sid laughed into Olli’s mouth. “Me, too.”

“All summer, this is all I—” 

Sid cut that off with another kiss. When he came up for air, he said, “This is _all_ you thought about? Really?”

“Not _all_.” Grinning helplessly, Olli knocked his knee against Sid’s. “I bought a really nice bed when I moved in.”

Sid tangled his fingers through Olli’s. “Show me.”

Two turns, and they were at the doorway. Boxes and piles of other shit lined the bedroom walls. Olli’d been afraid to jinx anything by tidying it, the way he’d tried to tidy the other parts of the house in the twenty minutes before Sid arrived. 

“This is me,” Olli said, and hoped Sid would hear what he meant. _I made it for you_.

Sid squeezed his hand. “Show me,” he repeated softly. 

By the bed, Olli kissed Sid again, his hands framing Sid’s face and his dark hair. Finally, overcome, Olli leaned into Sid and breathed.

“Okay?” Sid asked, stroking Olli’s spine.

“It’s different now,” Olli said, before he could think better of it.

Sid stilled. “Is that good?”

“I think so.” There was something swimming around in the back of Olli’s brain about _want_ versus _need_. Olli could almost see the shape of it, but he didn’t have the words. But he didn’t need them now. He took another shaky breath and pressed his mouth to Sid’s neck. Sid shivered, and maybe that was something they could talk about later—whether marks were okay now. Whether the team knowing was okay. 

Olli nipped at Sid’s neck, ever so gently, like a promise. Even that was almost too much, and he had to just breath against Sid’s neck for a while. “I missed you.”

“Yes,” Sid said.

“There’s a lot of stuff we have to figure out, isn’t there?”

Sid took a step back, eyes to Olli’s, his hands resting on Olli’s waist. “I think so, yeah.”

Telling people. Making plans. Sid would have another heat in a few months; would Sid go it alone or would they share it and take their chances with bond blockers? What were Olli’s parents going to say? What about—

Sid interrupted him with a kiss. “Later,” Sid said against Olli’s mouth. He gripped Olli’s hip and kissed him again, wet and open-mouthed, tongue to Olli’s lips. Olli let go and let himself be kissed. He kissed back, heated and hungry. 

Sid was right. The rest could wait. They had time.

[end]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been working on this fic since July 2014, so three years and change, almost my entire time in hockey fandom. It has been helped along by so many people. A) Everyone who read snippets as I went along but especially concinnity and pinetreelady, who after getting caught up at around the 40k mark read the second half of the story in 500-word dribbles every day or two. B) lettered who did a freaking line edit of the entire 83k draft and then gave me several thousands of notes worth of suggestions on how to fix my structural issues that I _knew_ I had. She is a CHAMP. C) sevenfists, who outlined my ending for me after the first two drafts didn’t work. D) Everyone on Twitter who responded to the daily wordcount updates I posted on and off for the final two years. E) All the people in chat who put up with my wailing and gnashing of teeth as I finished the draft this summer. And finally F) verity, who was so certain that I could finish even when I was really, really not.
> 
> And finally, thanks so much for reading, everyone who got this far. I have ambitions of posting some more author’s notes and commentary on Tumblr. (Feel free to send me asks if there’s something you’d like to see me talk about.) There may also be some timestamps at some point in the future. In the meantime, here's [my Sid/Olli tag](http://snickfic.tumblr.com/tagged/sidolli). May you find it inspirational. ;)


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